If National wins ...

[BlackPeter]

They told their supporters prior to voting who they would go with..to back track on that now means they lose their key support regardless in three years time...

Might gain though new support from environmentally aware centre / right voters. So far they can only muster voters who are green AND left-wing - and these voters can vote Labour as well (not a lot distinguishing these two parties anyway). Let's face it, the Greenies in their current form are redundant.

Believe it or not, but there are many centre / right voters around who would love to support an environmental party. Just look at Germany how successful the Green Party is over there ..

A green party able to work together with both major parties and with main focus on the environment (instead of on ripping off the welfare system) would have my support (and might get my vote ).

[Adam H]

All of the burden?

Last time I checked: NZ has

• a 15% GST - which is paid by everybody, not just wage / salary earners;
• a range of consumption taxes which are paid by everybody (petrol, alcohol, tobacco) which are linked to the consumption of the respective articles, not to wage / salary earning;
• a comprehensive income tax which includes speculators and traders - not just wage / salary earners;
• rates which are paid by property owners, no link to wage / salary;

And you are saying that wage/salary earners carry all of the burden? Open the other eye Sgt. Pepper, your post does not compute.

As a Green voter i completely agree with you that they should side with National. I vote for them based only on their enviromental policies, and wish they would make this a bigger focus.

However you post above is silly,

15% gst for a poor person is a far greater tax than 15% for someone with substantial wealth. Everyone needs the necessities and they get taxed equally on them. Poor people spend almost all their income on items which are taxed with GST. The same is not so for the wealthy who spend most of their money on investments. So a poor people have a MUCH larger % of their wealth going to GST than wealthy people.

The income tax is fine as is in my opinion but as we should all know on here you can make a lot of money without paying much income tax (Capital gains from property and shares). This untaxed 'income'/wealth accumulation is something that is only acquired by the people who already have significant capital.

Im not advocating anything, but GST in particular is not at all fair in my opinion. I would like to see it removed.

[fungus pudding]

As a Green voter i completely agree with you that they should side with National. I vote for them based only on their enviromental policies, and wish they would make this a bigger focus.

However you post above is silly,

15% gst for a poor person is a far greater tax than 15% for someone with substantial wealth. Everyone needs the necessities and they get taxed equally on them. Poor people spend almost all their income on items which are taxed with GST.

That is most unlikely. Presumably poor people do not own an unencumbered property so will either rent or service a mortgage, and that generally will be their biggest expense - as it should be.
So assuming they pay 50% in accommodation and spend the rest, that will equate to 7.5% of their income.

[Adam H]

Silly me i forgot about rent. However my point is still valid, they pay a MUCH higher % of their wealth into GST.

[Adam H]

Also 50% on accommodation seems high. But then i don't live in Auckland...

[winner69]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...207&Ref=NZH_Tw

Jacinda lost ...

...and then why Winston will go with National:

Trotter added that in the past Peters has rejected offers to form a government with three parties because he thought it was too many. Peters also has a history of backing the party who had the most votes.

But he still did not think it was enough to go against the "powerful" 46 per cent of people who voted for National.

"Look at who you would be denying if you went with Labour and the Greens assuming you are Winston. Because these just aren't any 46 per cent these are the most powerful people in the country.

"These are the people who owns things, the people who run things, the people who say things and expect people to do things and pretty damn quickly. To take 46 per cent and say sorry were going to ignore you - that's a pretty big thing to do."

[BlackPeter]

As a Green voter i completely agree with you that they should side with National. I vote for them based only on their enviromental policies, and wish they would make this a bigger focus.

Glad we agree on this point .

However you post above is silly,

It is not ... I was responding to a post saying that wage / salary earners carry all the tax burden. Now - this was a silly post - but I was too polite to call it that way. Why didn't you catch that?

I think what you want to say is that in your view the tax burden is currently not fairly distributed. I would agree with that - though we might have different views on how a fair tax distribution would look like.

Personally I think that the current NZ tax system is a good compromise - but yes, a flat income tax would be much fairer. You might prefer the "let's tax them until they leave" - philosophy". There is no right and wrong, and no silly or not ... just different views.

No need though, to call absolutely sensible posts "silly", just because you feel that some people need to pay more tax than they currently do.

[Adam H]

Fair enough BlackPeter. You are right your post clearly argues they don't carry all the burden, my apologies. I retract the 'silly'

Perhaps i am just a sour leftie after the election

I don't mind our tax system as it is, but would be heavily in favour of removing GST. I am not an advocate of a flat tax. I believe the details of who gets taxed what should be less about what is 'fair' and more about what is best for the country. I believe this should be based on studies rather than on opinions of fairness, which seem to dominate when it comes to who should be taxed what.

[fungus pudding]

Silly me i forgot about rent. However my point is still valid, they pay a MUCH higher % of their wealth into GST.

Let's say raise GST to 20% and make the first $25,000 of income tax free - thereafter a flat tax of ?????% (around20% should do it.)
With several million tourist passing through each year, and likely to continue as one of our biggest earners, we'd all be winning.

[Adam H]

Let's say raise GST to 20% and make the first $25,000 of income tax free - thereafter a flat tax of ?????% (around20% should do it.)
With several million tourist passing through each year, and likely to continue as one of our biggest earners, we'd all be winning.

I do agree that tourist are a consideration, and to me are the only saving grace of GST.

I think your proposal has some merit, but i would still favour removing GST. I also would not support a flat tax above $25K even with your system. The extra bit of GST is not going to make up for all the lost income tax. Also based on your proposal people who earn around the average income (~$50K) would take a decent hit if implemented. I don't think that's a good thing.