Well that Bridges has just made a fool of himself in his reply to the budget speech
Only comment I make on the Budget at this point in time is that its good that buying a nice looking horse is now tax deductible
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Well that Bridges has just made a fool of himself in his reply to the budget speech
Only comment I make on the Budget at this point in time is that its good that buying a nice looking horse is now tax deductible
new budget with lower doctors costs and the heating payments gives me about $1,100 a year in total. I will be able to save this much towards my old age which is very close. I might even stretch to a new chainsaw. Winston Peters will be saving for his old age - he hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell of getting back in next time. I know a heap of his voters - I was one once - and they all voted for him as a right-wing controller. Someone who would keep National away from excesses.
Great attitude re your old age which is close craic:). And do you really need a new chainsaw after your last episode, sounds excessive, how about donating to the food bank instead.. Talking about excess, this budget is so far from excessive craic , prudent is more accurate. Enjoy your whiskey but dont mix it with politics:)
I got served with a ban after the Election after making a comment on the Maori Party voters.
Well, whaddya know. They got didly squat in the budget. Just as I said. (opops time in JoyCamp must be wearing off. Bags packed for another visit)
Have to laugh at National complaining Labour did not spend enough money
Lol yes, saving that firepower for the next 2 budgets.
The coalition did keep their word on R&D tax credits, these being open to all businesses doing the defined R&D.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO180...udget-2018.htm
The rate will be 12.5% of the valid expenses refunded as a tax refund. I haven't had a good look at the fine print yet, but it's available on the web and they're looking for submissions on the exact format by 1st June.
As a small business owner in this sort of area, I'm a bit perturbed by the start amount, a firm now needs to spend $100,000 on applicable R&D in a financial year, before they can claim anything back. It's about the equivalent of one full-time researcher (wages at cost, overheads at cost, parts used at cost). This will reduce the amount of claims considerably, and brings it into line with a replacement of the lower level Callaghan funding. Without the same hurdles though. You won't have to prove how well you've been going for the last x years and all the rest of it. So it's more accessible, but still has a significant hurdle in funds that must be deployed first. Since there are few products that can be developed for under a few $100k anyway, it's not a problem if the small firm does development quickly, not so good if they want to take a few years doing it out of leftover cashflow.
There is no real upper limit on how much a firm can spend on R&D and claim some back, but they can't use another Callaghan Fund as well. Most of the big spenders will be looking at the 50% grant funds that need a lot more paperwork.
Anyway, firms are encouraged to file a submission.
I agree EZ that this was a good idea but the policy seems to be ill thought out, unless they are targeting assistance to the likes of Spark, Vodafone, Xero etc. Sadly, most of the small startups will fail 2 of the criteria, the $100,000 p.a. expenditure requirement and they need to be very profitable to gain from a tax credit. This policy sadly is a fail.
It can't be a fail, Iceman, as it hasn't started yet. In fact the submissions have been pre-structured into 23 questions that should be answered.
Q15 states: "Is the minimum threshold set at the right level? If 'no', please provide further details.
Here is a link to the files. http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-service...-tax-incentive
Considering even the likes of farmer-funded DairyNZ can apply for this credit from taxpayers, I think it's important that smaller businesses, of which there are many tens of thousands in NZ, can also access a small credit for their true R&D activities. They shouldn't need to get to say 3-4 staff before they can afford to spend $100,000 a year on R&D. A setting like $50,000 might be more suitable as a threshold if they really want to include small businesses. The credit for that amount is $6250 off your tax bill, which starts to make it a worthwhile exercise for the business owner to do the report/claim, and it would also be a valuable source of R&D data for the govt.
SMEs should send in submissions, there is an online or postal system for it.
I must note that the annual threshold of $100,000 only applies if a firm carries out their own R&D. There is no threshold if they use an external "approved provider".
You're right EZ. Minister Woods has been interviewed on NBR and was asked many questions about the R&D policy. According to the NBR, her headline response to each was "good question but its under consultation until June 1".
So basically yet another policy without detail and no doubt they will appoint a group to talk about it.
Does this Government actually have any working policies other than Winston's $ 1 Billion for Diplomats, $1 Billion p.a. for Shane Jones and many millions for the racehorse industry ?
None of Labour's big ideas seem to be happening !
I think they're being cautious. The 2008 R&D tax credit was openly audited, or had the probability of being audited by IRD. I would have been one of the smaller businesses accessing the credit that year. When mine was approved, the person from the office said that only 300 businesses had applied for the credit at that stage, although they were pleasantly surprised at the range of R&D activities. Patent applications that year were higher than usual. Note that there are over 528,000 enterprises in NZ.
Now the tax records are out and people are commenting on them (IRD, 2010). For that 2008 R&D year, $154mill was paid out in tax credits, so for those firms at the 15% rate that applied, they'd done just over $1bill of R&D. It also means the average claim was $513,000 for $3.42mill of R&D. These are not average firms, then. Since NZ's GDP is about $285Bill, and the OECD average is 2.8% of GDP spent on R&D, the tax credits were for $1Bill, when the OECD target is $8Bill. Labour's target is 2% or $5.7Bill.
Maybe more than 300 businesses claimed. But in any case, I suspect it was mainly those already at the top of the pile who accessed most of the tax refund. Some of these would be listed companies, companies that accessed other R&D grants for other work at a higher grant rate. Stuart Nash is still reported recently, saying that the new R&D tax credit scheme will be accessible to many enterprises that would not easily fit in the existing system of R&D grants (with their high hurdles to jump).
In the spirit of R&D tax credits for SMEs, I hope he also means the smaller end of the business sector, and that he doesn't assume those businesses are inept when it comes to doing their own moderately risky R&D.
The government is also intending to phase out Callaghan's Growth Grants, which are for 20% of R&D work carried out by large firms in general, and put them into the 12.5% R&D tax credit area. So there will be a saving there, to help fund the R&D tax credits.
It looks like a lot of the policy settings are up for testing with submissions, so I will find it interesting to see if there are any changes made in the final R&D policy.
Phil said he ‘wasn’t thinking straight’
So what’s new, he never ‘thinks straight’ — so should be let off
At least he’s got one less department to stuff up.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pol...viation-breach
Phil spotted and reported by Judith Collins? The Nats are trying everything at the moment. How they must hate being out of power.
Lame David Bennett, the MP for Hamilton East apparently, was eventually forced to withdraw and apologise in the house today, twice. Those episodes at least kept the opposition embarrassed and quiet, for a few long seconds. Finally there's a speaker who will enforce the rules. Doesn't suit Paula Bennett of course. She's keen on the House being more "robust". She was booted out again today, also in this clip.
https://youtu.be/MwWRUIYHO5M
Ex-lawyer Bridges has been asked directly by the press if he has spoken to all the National MPs that may have made a sexist comment about the PM. He'd forgotten if he had or not. The names mentioned included David Bennett. I heard a radio interview once where MP David Bennett was asked about his thoughts on Helen Clark. He blustered away a bit, digging a hole until the interviewer suggested he sounded like a misogynist. He shut up pretty quickly.