I guess since dog-fighting is illegal, grotesque and doesn't play on the wireless putting Coddington and Trotter in a studio is the next best thing.?

Having the stones to tell the middle classes that they can swallow the dead rat, pay tax on the capital gains from their houses and take one for Team New Zealand? I know, #yeahright

Coddington, OTOH: "If every other country had child prostitution would you want to bring that in, too?"

He was.

Yes, and God knows I don't say this very often. What was it exactly that you had issues with, Craig?

Also, if the child prostitution line is the best that the Right can do on this one, it bodes superbly well.

Tau Henare has also been trying "but what possible reason could we have for wanting to stop people investing in property?" on Twitter.

By comparison with Coddington, a baboon with electrodes on its privates would have been cogent. But given Trotter's track record of ?Waitakere Man? twatcockery in recent years, putting him in the same studio with Coddington was a risky move. It could have been a?

So basically you're taking issue with the fact that he was there, not with what he actuallty had to say. Gotcha. I suppose.

But on this occasion, did not.

But that just proves. something

OK that was my poorly-remembered paraphrase. The actual quote I was thinking of is:

They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that?s paid for by asking 33 seniors?

Yeah, I don?t have a lot of time for people who think criticising Winston Peters (or anyone in public life) is equivalent to gang rape or being?

Yes, but even I doubt that they could have. There is a history of antypathy for land tax and CGT in New Zealand, we can't expect that Labour will be able to frame a bolder argument (supposing they even wanted to) in?

Ah yes, the classic Hitler Ate Sugar argument. I was struggling not to snigger during that interview.

And Trotter isn?t usually the optimistic type, so the CGT must have struck a chord.

Best?

(On point: property is a productive asset, it makes shelter. That's pretty handy. Also, this CGT is a really good idea, and best of all, it's Labour going on the offensive and on policy for once.)

It was more like waking up in an "over there" episode of Fringe — talkback is an oasis of calm, measured analysis of the issues of the day and National Radio has gone insane in the membrain. :)

We must tax those mounds!

Giovanni: I think that it?s important to treat day trading and its equivalents the same way we treat house flipping, or currency speculation

You don't need to convince me. Believe me.

I was going to use the words "demented weasel" but I thought?

Oram : ?It would be one useful thing to do among quite a wide range of things to do. It would send some very good messages. It would send a very powerful message to many New Zealand?

Now, sometimes particularly vicious forms of it are bad – Keynes' casino, basically. But I don't think the state should get too moralistic about economic matters. Just?

Short-term there will probably be rent increases, yes. Medium- and long-term, though,?

Can I be confused by this, and thus ask for an explanation. Isn't that the standard around the world?

And once on this slope, will we end up putting a CGT on the family jewels??

And then there?s the class-consciousness, demographic wedge, which Chris Trotter got pitch-perfect: property speculators are ?landlords?, and the object isn?t to win back disgruntled National voters, but to engage the 20%+ of the electorate who didn?t vote last time because they?

What, both of them? ;)

Sure. But are those benefits (which largely accrue to other market speculators) worth making it tax free?

I think not.

Also how about a strong commitment to a buy NZ made campaign? Remember that used to say keep our country working...?

(Also, I guess losses from such activities are tax deductible. It would be better if the IRD categorised it as a?

Considering Goff et al have already discredited a land tax, I don't hold out much hope they will follow the experts.

What I see happening to cover rent rises (which are?

At the moment, yes. But we all know once it's in, it is cannon-fodder for future politicans. Then there's the general issue of whether that $15K is better left in the?

Can I put this is class conscious demographic wedge terms, Lew might approve of? :) Boo-fucking-hoo if Messers Key and Goff get taxed on the capital gain from their Parnell McMansions?

I know the latest Tax Working Group didn't.

__Most members of the TWG have significant concerns over the practical challenges arising from a comprehensive CGT.

The majority of the TWG support detailed consideration of taxing returns from capital invested in residential rental properties on the basis of a deemed notional return calculated using a?

In which case the gains aren't taxable either. If you want to deduct losses, you have to declare profits. If you don't declare?

If you own a business and apply your energy and talents to make a profit, you pay company tax on that profit (28c in the dollar).
If you work hard as an employee ? say as a?

I guess they're targeting investment property. It is also exactly how it's done in Oz.

Instead she gushes?

Sorry, I'll never buy that. *Rich* pricks spend?

There?

The Government getting $15k*1 doesn't buy?

Or it can balance the books. That would be good for the economy.

BTW, I'm having a few issues understanding the nature of the Higgs Boson – would you be able to provide explanations?

If we follow the Ozzie model, it will be inflation adjusted. So buy-and-holders don't pay much CGT. It really targets trading.

The South Africans just set their CGT rate at 15%, far lower than their income tax rates, and didn't bother with inflation adjustment. Simplifies things, and the lower rate helps compensate for the inflation effect. Or, as Ben suggests, we could follow as and index, but?

Oh yeah, +1 (for?

Only if you sell. Hold it, take the rents. It's a good system – it's not like there aren't heaps of people in Oz who have made a mega fortune in property.?

Yeah nah. I get allowing folks to make decisions for themselves. But really? Even the US of A uses capital gains tax. It really really isn't that big a deal.

Capital gains is a way?

FTR, apart from our own house, none of the family... 'investments' are?

Well you could argue it is a net income, because it negates the cost of renting a home?

It cannot be fair
No haiku needed for this
Only politics

In the long term it would make no difference if the family home was subject to CGT, but it simply isn't possible to implement politically. Which you know?

There is no real difference between CGT on investment properties and CGT on family homes. You could think of it essentially the same way you can think of GST. It would require some juggling of other tax numbers to get the total tax take where it was needed?

There's no loophole – there is a CGT now.

Why can?t folks just make money, keep it and decide whether to save it (good), pay off debt (good) or buy a?

Thanks, I was wondering how this might work. You?re not exactly ?gaining? if you just briefly realised the equity?

That's a pretty broad (incorrect) statement. There certainly is no CGT, rather there is an Income Tax Act that very loosely includes some forms of gain as income – but certainly not in the usual Commonwealth manner of explicitly stating capital?

Because on the whole they weren't – they were using it as collateral to secure more debt (bad)?

Its not. Its a messy compromise to pass the thing -?

Top writing RB. Deb Coddington was sadly out of her depth again, let's be honest economically the depth of the?

I presume it concedes the need for a roof over your head. If you own a family home and?

Wishful thinking. One might hope that New Zealanders are slowly realizing that; the best I can say about the media is?

No. It only applies if your home gained in value and then only carves off 15% of that gain.

So?

M?kay. I need to phrase my response to this very carefully because any suggestion that residential property is an emotionally-weighty but rationally flimsy (IMO and YMMV, of course) fetish object tends to get, well, not exactly troll-ish but definitely troll-adjacent (?panoramic views of bridge from?

I or buy a TV keeping a Harvey Norman salesman(person) in a job (good)?

Or maybe the government could make T.V's and the dude could become a highly paid international modern tradesman. Big Store Retail is hardwork and poorly paid.

In a thread where Nick Kearney has raised his head, I think that borders on trolling.

Keep up the good work :P

On this logic, why have taxes at all?

I think that actually was the question. And it's just too big for this thread, really a non-sequitur. Nick, given that we have taxes on income/profit in NZ, what reason is there for a strange loophole in this for property investors?

See my comment above. That'll answer your question.

now you're singing to the 2% neolib choir :)

Yes. I see. I don't normally follow links to kiwiblog, but I'm glad I made an exception there.

Labour will announce that soon as well, or my name isn't Hugo Z. Hackenbush.

If you buy some machinery or plant that makes widgets... it keeps on?

Keir's point I think was that the sector that surrounds our housing stock?

I think if you people were to invest in businesses who in?

Otherwise investing in housing rather than business 'produces' bugger all – and even the subsidiary industries could be doing something more useful (and foreign income earning) for our nation.

In any case, the Opposition finally has the?

Well, depends. If nothing changes and houses were all worth 20% more, then we'd call that a bubble or inflation, and it would be pointless, mere accounting jiggery-pokery. But?

For many years little or no insulation, single glazing, crappy kitchens and bathrooms, bad floor plans and bad siting. And a house should be more than just shelter, something not even considered when many are built.
And I havent?

My house is actually a library (and I love it so) but – things now make it impractical
for me-in-my-60s...but?

and very much yes- self-builders do have love & attention when building their places-
because we tend to live therein-

mind you, for sheer aesthetic pleasure you wanna?

Better government is part of the answer

NZ Governments fail to deliver effective frameworks both in legislation and in practice.

Recent major failings are apparent in:
*The Leaky Building crisis
*The collapse of Finance Companies.?

It also risks opening up a self-inflicted credibility gap if a CGT (of as yet unknown scope and reach) doesn?t?

fingers crossed – or it will be a very boring election

On cue.

Landlords have already become so afraid of a capital gains tax that an industry leader says they are bowing out of the market.

David Whitburn, president of the Auckland Property Investors Association, said prospective residential investors were spooked by Labour's 15 per cent?

People are weird.

Bored with. Not ?bored of?. Why should we take economic advice from someone with all the literacy of Vicky Pollard? Also, how much ?talent? does it take to rent a house out?

LOL. Great idea! Let's buy rental property where they already have CGT (or equivalent). I'm not too worried about losing their?

The market will price the future cost into today's rents as fast as they can get away with it – which is pretty much immediately despite any pretence of supply-demand balance.

You've considered trading down? It's a common choice for people who have an overvalued house. Sell it, buy something more?

Well, yes. Not that long ago, I?

Possibly, but it's also an exercise in changing the political landscape. I don't see National being willing to reverse out a CGT that's Labour's creation, at least?

Because the rent only just keeps up with expenses, since the property is meant to make a loss now and make the owner money at the time of sale. If the?

Yup, that's one of the most crazily dysfunctional parts of the system is that it actually encourages people to lose money. And it's not like that is hard. This?

This was the fiddle that DexterX never seemed to accept was commonplace in the first thread which?

The more I read these threads, the more I realise my profound financial naivete. That would never have occurred to me.

The tax avoidance?

I'd prefer it was 50% myself for investment, and 30% standard, but there goes me showing my utopian idealism. In this utopia house prices?

It was repealed by National in 1979.

Needless to say, I would be the first to applaud if Goff spend a few minutes on Tuesday laying out Labour?s plan to end the corporate culture of tax avoidance. Because you?

They need to change and simplify the tax basis of large corporations. Move to a structure where the average profit for each industry is designated (e.g. 25% for telecoms) and applied to the firms sales in NZ + exports from NZ. That's the?

It doesn't need to be a conscious thing.

If you have any sort of land intensive business, like a farm or rental property, or even if you buy a?

Well, it is a little hard to believe when you hear capitalist rhetoric about the virtues of investment, which are all very plausible when it comes to setting up?

And watch new entrants go to the?

That depends on how much you borrow, of course. If you buy it outright, you're not paying any mortgage. There's a break even point where rentals and mortgages?

Harsh, dude, it's just an idea. But I agree overall, I can't see it being a good idea to ever put caps on how much profit businesses can make. Indeed, I can't see any likely way to "end the corporate culture of tax avoidance". Tax avoidance?

Is what I said. Not new businesses. And one could easily envisage an exception for startups of scale, and one for customer/employee cooperatives, which is how enterprises *should* be structured.

Like Myspace,?

How is this a cap? It's for the type of company that contrives to book their sales in Ireland to evade paying tax. Or generates bogus interest charges in order to?

Yup. I'm describing very much the conditions that led to the dot-com bubble, but I don't have the answer about how to prevent that – that could very well be one for the famous discipline of the market. That was pretty much what ended up happening.

Fscking Bono!

That depends on what kind of house you want. When we (very briefly) looked at whether we could buy a house this year, we discovered that there is a pretty good supply of the kind of place which?

So here you are dishing Kiwisaver and investment in managed funds etc??.

What all these guys don't get is that money flowing around and around doesn't make squat. Only production?

I?d dispute that. We?d be better off with a natural monopoly like telecoms being community owned through something like a worker/customer coop. I?d be happy to see such an enterprise pay negligible tax, as the profits are going to people entitled to them, not wealthy?

But you are right that it is the expectation?

Well, in an ideal free market those are both?

Vodafone (or maybe Telecom) will buy them. They'll take a write off of all those accumulated losses against their taxes (ensuring they avoid any contribution to the community for a year or two). They'll then take a?

NZ is at or near record highs for property prices in proportion to average income. A lot of that is rental property. In Ireland, UK and America they also had similar?

Or we should apply it retrospectively to any property purchased in the last 10 years, instead of just?

If you look at that 25 year term say you?

Not at all. They're both good things, but they certainly shouldn't be majorly profitable in themselves. If they are, they're sucking it out of the marrow of the economy that actually produces things.

Just to make it clear?

Interesting. I wonder if it was less about complexity and more about increasing the tax take.

When we were doing up our house, we wanted it to be both a pleasant place to live and functional for the foreseeable future.

I recall making a trip?

I think you need to do some reading around the concept of Syndicalism. A true cooperative (which is very different from a company where workers have minority, unequal shareholdings) enables ownership and control to be vested in those with an interest?

Yeah, but nah. It's pretty rare for the Minister to?

Yeah, nice in theory, impossible in practice on a global scale. And when you're talking about things like?

They'll be back, unless we manage truly radical change.

They've got the money, they own the media, they can convince the drones that making people put their name on election material is dictatorial corruption and we should vote for a change. If?

Yes, but hopefully without some of the most toxic of today's baggage, including the associations with Act. Joyce, English, Williamson, they'll all be gone before National is next in power. Key's already made it abundantly clear that he's not prepared to be Leader of the Opposition. They're?

You?ve heard of Mondragon?

Five times larger than Telecom NZ. Operating in businesses from supermarkets to white goods. Run on a one person/one vote basis, with an average ratio of maximum to minimum wages of 5:1.

1. Only if they sell. And if we get the property market freeing up because a whole lot of landlords are selling at lower-than-current pries, that's?

To be nit-picky, Gareth, we don?t have any policy yet ? and I wouldn?t presume the current Labour front bench?

In part because there's not much experience of what quality housing is like. People don't know any better, so they accept cheap. If?

BUT – it may be all they can afford...

Not so sure about that. I think Kiwis are weirdly stingy. I can't explain it, really.

True, especially when crap actually gets approved for construction. Overseas, because standards are high, crap just doesn't get built in any significant quantity. Here, we have the choice between crap, or high quality with a significant premium – priced like a choice between?

Which is no choice at all, you realize?

Parsimonious culture inherited from certain British peoples (and their demagogues) who viewed frugality as a virtue.

FM

This approach underlay the deregulation to the building industry and the problems it created.

It doesn't even come down to being able to afford quality – people you can afford quality?

Maybe not in manufacturer, but in term of price and luxury there's definitely a choice. I did pick those marques for a reason.

If you say so. I've got a Lexus 400, and my mate has a Toyota Celsior. Apart from the badge, it's the same car. Well OK, mine's?

I'm not sure you are disagreeing, although "cognitive misers" is inspired.

Sounds about right. Ian Cassels of the?

Just finished listening to this Nine to Noon slot, and a PwC tax partner says that Aus gives a 50% discount on?

Bullshit. This is all about speculation. Even our farmers are basically farming capital gains. And its?

New Zealanders are poorer than the citizens of half of the other countries in the OECD. Could that be it?

– CGT regimes usually tax capital gains, but don't allow deductions for capital losses. Yes, that's asymmetrical, but it's a standard asymmetry in the design of CGTs.

– Day traders, and people who buy several houses each year and flick them on quickly, are both engaged?