If National wins ...

[elZorro]

EZ you'll love the irony in this.

@StewartWood: Lynton Crosby gets his knighthood on the day Tory recriminations about his dog-whistle London Mayoral campaign begin https://t.co/vovDETUIDg


(Cameron brought in CT to help Goldsmith win London mayoralty and played dirty and lost)

Yes, that's incredibly ironic, W69. Crosby gets a knighthood for "services to politics". What a bunch of rogues.

[elZorro]

I notice the National Glee Club seems to have left the building. I realize National have had a terrible time in the press of late, but not being here to defend Key and his cohorts?
I can just imagine the private messages that were exchanged to organize this moratorium.
Ahh well, you have learnt secrecy from the best. Key of course, the only head of state named in the latest Panama Papers release.
The only one!
But apparently they are confused.
Just like that poor young girl in the café he harassed for months on end, tugging her ponytail.

Daytr, don't know if you read the SST this morning, but I'm really warming to the weekly commentary from David Slack. He's just one of several media people who have figured out John Key. Have a read of this.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...ll-the-answers

[elZorro]

TV1 and RNZ have really got into the Panama Papers over the last week, it was virtually all of the news items on TV1 at 6am and 7am this morning. Several reporters helping Nicky Hager over the few days, and they seem fairly fired up about it. Andrea Vance in particular, seems to have changed her tune about helping National out if possible.

While a lot of points were made about NZ's trust laws fitting the OECD definition of being a tax haven, and that even if we did disclose, there was no real information to disclose (the trustee and the name of the trust, what use is that?), there was still one major point missed out.

John Key was on TV1 saying Labour set up these rules. That was the chance, right in front of the nation, for Rawden to remind the PM that he was the one who pushed for a change in the tax rate on those foreign trusts once National got into power. Yep, it was a change from 28% tax to the NZ govt coffers, to zero tax. A benign tax rate of nil tax paid anywhere in the world, on that money. So then the number of foreign trusts went from just over 1,000 (probably legitimate) trusts to well over 12,000 trusts, and I bet with a lot more cash in them too.

National had the numbers, they railroaded this change through in the house in 2011. Well now you should be squirming John, you'll get pinned down on this soon enough. You are bringing NZ into disrepute. Take your dosh and leave. Of course he's probably already got quite a bit of his dosh in some other tax haven overseas. The giant quid pro quo.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...day+9+May+2016

[Daytr]

Its a good point you make EZ re dropping the tax rate. Why would they have done that unless they wanted to attract more of this dodgy money ?
Or they are in Cahoots somewhere ? Could be both. Either way it has a very bad smell about it. Why isn't Little hammering this home re the drop in tax rate? Its political gold.

[elZorro]

Its a good point you make EZ re dropping the tax rate. Why would they have done that unless they wanted to attract more of this dodgy money ?
Or they are in Cahoots somewhere ? Could be both. Either way it has a very bad smell about it. Why isn't Little hammering this home re the drop in tax rate? Its political gold.

Here's the link to the post I think explains the 0% rate on PIE Funds. http://thestandard.org.nz/key-change...o-a-tax-haven/

If a NZ-based fund invests solely in overseas investments for the anonymous beneficiary of one of our foreign-owned trusts, the tax rate is 0%. It used to be 28%, not as exciting.

I'm not sure how that impacted on the numbers using these trusts, but I assume it's a way of laundering money. Foreigners sometimes might not have made much on the investments, but there was no tax on any income either. And when the money comes back out, it's clean. In general it would have highlighted the very light disclosure regime here, for countries with no double-tax agreement with NZ. There are plenty of those.

Ken Whitney, JK's ex-lawyer/financial expert, certainly has links to Mossack Fonseca, along with all his mates. Also in this article is the link to the database of leaked documents.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/7980...-Fonseca-links

[Snapper]

Around the time that the tax rate was dropped there was a push (promoted by John Key) to establish an international funds management industry in NZ, the rationale being that with our particular time zone, fund managers may think that it is an attractive place to be based. How much of this has come to fruition is anyone's guess but that was the stated rationale for changing the tax rate to zero.

Obviously this will just invite speculation that this wasn't the real reason but what evidence exists for that? There are plenty of other places around the world to hide your money, NZ is just one of them.

[Daytr]

Agree, but we ask less questions than most 1st world nations. We are on the UN security council for gawds sake and we don't even know who is funneling what through these foreign trusts. And why should they be tax free? Of course that would be attractive, but for what benefit? In regards time zone, the liquidity is so poor generally and it doesn't now really matter where you are based to trade. I trade global markets quite easily and it doesn't matter where I am based.

Around the time that the tax rate was dropped there was a push (promoted by John Key) to establish an international funds management industry in NZ, the rationale being that with our particular time zone, fund managers may think that it is an attractive place to be based. How much of this has come to fruition is anyone's guess but that was the stated rationale for changing the tax rate to zero.

Obviously this will just invite speculation that this wasn't the real reason but what evidence exists for that? There are plenty of other places around the world to hide your money, NZ is just one of them.

[elZorro]

National have been putting out press releases implying that only 3% of houses sold over the last few months went to 'foreign buyers'. Except that by their definition, they had to be personal entities. So this didn't include any trusts or companies, foreign students (rather temporarily in NZ) buying houses in name, but funded by their parents, etc.

A commentator on RNZ, a generally more careful reporter of facts, put the actual foreign buyer percentage due to all these other categories, as somewhere between 3% and a staggering 48%.

Also below the radar, Cameron Slater has been outed in court as the middleman for an operation designed to crack the names of anonymous commentators to The Standard by hacking their website, late in 2015. $1,000 was paid over by Slater, presumably not his money, and another $4,000 was to follow. However, the hacker reported the situation and didn't really do much hacking, and the site owner added protection to their software. So where did the money come from I wonder?

It hasn't been a good week for JK, now his nemesis Russel Norman has pinged him on TV1 for spouting crap in the House, while his own financial wizard Whitney has strong links and lots of mates connected with Mossack Fonseca.

http://thestandard.org.nz/keys-lawyer-is-a-mossack-man/

[Daytr]

The property market and now tourism reminds me a bit of dairy, balloons that have been inflated without any party planning. Places like Queenstown and Auckland have quickly become very expensive places to stay. Property flipping is still rampant in Auckland and Queenstown prices are up 50% in two years. Despite 66k additional people being added to the population, growth is relatively sluggish and you have an RBNZ dropping rates at a time when property is out of control so they can fight a currency war! This government's economic growth model is a one trick pony. More people!
National is the Muldoon era reinvented, however Key is smarter than Piggy was and is prepared to backflip on any issue to keep his popularity running & as long as he hands out lollies in the form of a housing bubble, people will allow him to do virtually anything he likes. Very sad state of affairs.

[elZorro]

At least the speaker finally started to act more properly over John Key's stories in the house during question time. Although his main issue wasn't the poor content of what he was saying, but that he stayed talking when the speaker rose to his feet.

By late 2017, Daytr, JK and his mates had better hope that the Auckland property bubble hasn't burst yet, and that dairy prices are looking to make a recovery. Otherwise their so-called economic wizardry/steady hands won't be looking too clever.

Auckland University alone graduated about 5,000 students over the last week or so - where these graduates will fit into our housing/service/tourism industries, all with rather modest income potential, is beyond me.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ay+12+May+2016