On Thu, 17 Dec 2020 15:10:03 -0800 (PST), James Christophers
Post by James ChristophersPost by TonyPost by James ChristophersPost by TonyPost by John BowesPost by GordonPost by John BowesThat's the problem with the fiscally bereft left. They're great till the
smelly stuff hits the rotating blades!
Post by John Boweshttps://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300184709/treasury-warns-more-tax-needed-to-plug-government-spending-hole-house-prices-will-keep-rising
Will it be a CGT, 20% GST or both?!
No 17.5% GST first.
Like Ardern's promise of no further taxes I wouldn't bet on it :)
Rich will say that these are not new taxes but increases to existing
ones and levies.
A levy is a tax by any reasonable definition.
A category, defining a specific target and/or purpose.
A tax is a levy is a duty is a tax.
As also are imposts and excises.
Post by TonyAll is semantics otherwise.
Quite so. But that's not my point - which is to do with the naming and pigeon-holing of taxation categories for official bookkeeping purposes. In effect, it all operates within what is effectively a slush fund in all but name, with the government of the day dipping into and out of as needs, **pragmatism and politics** dictate. T'was ever thus and shall forever be because this is what, in essence, you cast your vote for every three years. That, plus our tax system is beyond broken. Result? Our ** **historic lacklustre real productivity** economic performance is even further stymied and inhibited to the point of long-term stultification. No one has yet come up with a way of fixing it, and I doubt anyone ever will. Our ostrich-like first-world demands exceed by far our sub-second-world capacity to pay for them. Printed paper and foreign funding are now all that keep us afloat. Fool's gold if ever there were.
So with the current state of the economy - currently "well managed" though it may arguably be - railing against any government, body or individual can only be futile. Which implies that any such further discourse based on the long-term, deep-rooted scenario as given above can never be satisfactorily concluded.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/L-December/Tax-cuts-for-the-rich
"... The paper, published by LSEÂ’s International Inequalities
Institute, uses data from 18 OECD countries, including the UK and the
US, over the last five decades. The Economic Consequences of Major Tax
Cuts for the Rich, by David Hope and Julian Limberg, shows that the
last 50 years were a period of falling taxes on the rich in the
advanced economies. Major tax cuts were spread across countries and
throughout the observation period but were particularly clustered in
the late 1980s.
It states: “Our results show that…major tax cuts for the rich increase
the top 1% share of pre-tax national income in the years following the
reform. The magnitude of the effect is sizeable; on average, each
major reform leads to a rise in top 1% share of pre-tax national
income of 0.8 percentage points. The results also show that economic
performance, as measured by real GDP per capita and the unemployment
rate, is not significantly affected by major tax cuts for the rich.
The estimated effects for these variables are statistically
indistinguishable from zero.”
It continues: “Our findings on the effects of growth and unemployment
provide evidence against supply side theories that suggest lower taxes
on the rich will induce labour supply responses from high-income
individuals (more hours of work, more effort etc.) that boost economic
activity. They are, in fact, more in line with recent empirical
research showing that income tax holidays and windfall gains do not
lead individuals to significantly alter the amount they work.” "
Worth reading the whole article.