Who votes for these people? The Greens, discussing their taxation policy on TVNZ, are actually quoted as saying “Tax Is Love”. Marama Davidson actually said that. I seriously wonder what planet she is on; this type of campaigning is likely to be a big turn-off for voters, even some Green voters. We are already one of the highest-taxed countries in the OECD, although socialist countries such as Denmark and Sweden are ahead of us, of course; but when you include GST, fuel taxes, tobacco and alcohol levies, vehicle registration and road user charges along with income tax, it seems that very little of our money is our own.
And yet the Greens want to tax us more. Significantly more.
Incomes over $100,000 will attract income tax at 37%. This is probably roughly the equivalent of what Helen Clark did in the year 2000, when she introduced a top tax rate of 39 cents on incomes over $60,000. But the Greens want to go one step further, and introduce a higher tax bracket; incomes over $150,000 will be taxed at 42%.
The Greens claim that it will only affect the top 6% of earners in the country, which does not sound like a huge number, but it misses a very important point. New Zealand does not have a large number of high earners. $100,000 is not a large salary these days. Helen Clark found out the same thing when she introduced her top tax rate; it had to be brought down to an income level that is not particularly high, otherwise the revenue gained from it would be negligible.
But the Greens don’t care. They are hellbent on a system of redistribution that takes away from people that work hard and gives it away to people that do not.
Exactly how that makes society ‘fairer’, I do not know. As the old saying goes, you cannot tax people into prosperity, but the Greens seem to think you can do exactly that.
Then there is the wealth tax. Most countries that have introduced wealth taxes seem to be moving away from them, partly because they are distinctly unfair and partly because they are often the target for tax avoidance. It is potentially not too difficult to sell assets into different entities to reduce the level of ownership to below $1,000,000 in each one, but this simply means that little old ladies living in the family home in Auckland which is now worth over $1 million will bear the brunt of the wealth tax. There is absolutely nothing fair about this at all, and as it is a tax on unearned income, the tax will put many people into hardship if they have to pay it. In other words, the Greens’ beneficiaries, who will ‘have enough to live’ will, in fact, be better off than people who have worked all their lives. If that is their idea of a fair society, then they are simply stonking mad.
While we are all laughing at Newshub’s latest poll which tells us that Labour will be able to govern alone, remember that this outcome is very unlikely, but National still has its work cut out to beat the saintly Jacinda. There is, in fact, a very good chance that our next government will consist of only Labour and the Greens. If so, there is no point in pretending that higher taxes will not be on the way.
While I doubt that Labour will go along with a wealth tax, simply because it is political suicide, I have no doubt that higher rates of income tax will be applied if Labour leads our next government. This may be seen as a sop to the Greens, but it is likely to be part of Labour’s future tax policy anyway.
This is why we cannot allow this bunch of Marxists anywhere near the government benches again. They will take away all incentive to work hard and get ahead, instead favouring those who prefer to do nothing and accept handouts over those that prefer to work.
Socialism has never worked anywhere in the world, but sure… let’s give it one more try.
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