OnPoint by Keith Ng

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OnPoint: Tax cut zombies

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  • Steve Barnes,

    Wage and salary earners have no deductions available to them in relation to that income,

    Not quite true. Charitable donations and donations to schools are deductible but we were talking GST.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole,

    Wage and salary earners have no deductions available to them in relation to that income,

    Not quite true. Charitable donations and donations to schools are deductible but we were talking GST.

    They're rebated, not deducted. That is, you claim them back from the IRD rather than putting them as deductions in an IR3.
    And I did say "You cannot claim expenses incurred in earning income that has PAYE deducted" which is absolutely correct irrespective of the availability of rebates for charitable donations.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Idiot/Savant has done some more work on NZ's income distribution, which highlights why our decision-makers are so out of touch.

    So, the median income is around the decile 5 boundary of $23,000 a year. But the median income for wage and salary earners for that year was $729 a week, or $37,908 a year, putting a median wage earner squarely in decile 7.

    MPs BTW earn $131,000 a year plus expenses (and more if they have a select committee chair or a party position), putting them in the top 1.7% of income earners; Cabinet Ministers earn $243,700, placing them in the top 0.4%.

    ...


    78% of us don't even pay the middle tax rate, and the top tax rate is utterly irrelevant to 91% of the population.

    Remember that next time the government or the media talk about "middle-income" tax cuts - they're not talking about you, or most of New Zealand. Instead, they're only talking about themselves.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    It's a common mistake to think that, when Key says he is "embushus for Nyu Zillund," he actually means that he is "ambitious for New Zealand." The truth is that those words mean something else entirely. The phrase is perhaps best translated as "Bron and I are taking the kids to Hawaii now. See you in a bit. Byeee!"

    I see the beginnings of a new blog: Translating John Key, by Caleb D'Anvers. I'd sign up.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • 3410,

    Idiot/Savant has done some more work on NZ's income distribution,

    Thanks, Sacha. I'd read that this morning and then driven myself mad trying to find it again somewhere in Keith's last four columns.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report Reply

  • stephen clover,

    which highlights why our decision-makers are so out of touch

    In using the term "out of touch", I feel that you're being quite.. umm.. what is it? Polite? Kind? Generous? Strategic?

    C'mon. No one actually believes that it is some kind of omission, or accident, that they're throwing around terms like "big personal tax cuts for middle-income earners", do they? We're being bent over something unpleasant* and fucked here, and utterances like those are the sound of the govt and the complicit media cooing soothingly at us while they gleefully high-five and snigger at us out of sight behind their hands like fuckwitted teenage boys, or out-of-control rugby league players, or something.

    They're not "out of touch", they're lying to us and using those words and their magic made-up numbers to try to keep us in the dark.

    * I dunno, possibly the rotting corpse of the welfare state, etc.

    wgtn • Since Sep 2007 • 355 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    And here is a glimpse of the sort of sunlit uplands of investment opportunities that New Zealand's business class offers us all once/if the government forces people out of property...

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    In using the term "out of touch", I feel that you're being quite.. umm.. what is it? Polite? Kind? Generous? Strategic?

    I'll take the first three - for novelty value, you understand :)

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • stephen clover,

    Hahaha, in keeping with the spirit of the site ;)

    wgtn • Since Sep 2007 • 355 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Neoliberalism for children

    Includes enjoyable homebrew analogue computing.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    Hey, don't be too hard on Key. It's not just him being ambitious for his country

    Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott wants to catch up with New Zealand.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • Cecelia,

    Mr Key declined to comment directly on the Herald reader survey on the basis that it was "not scientific".

    Labour leader Phil Goff also questioned whether the survey reflected wider opinion.

    I thought John Key's response to the Herald Readers' Survey on the GST increase was halfway decent. After all, it was in his favour - or is her still sitting on the fence?

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • Mark Bennett,

    um, a little late, but just wanted to comment on the strangely uncharitable interpretation that the first three commentators made of Craig's initial comment. There's nothing wrong in holding people accountable to the values they espouse - in fact, that's a very good thing to do... he was clearly not saying that National's proposals are acceptable because Labour acted on similarly bad principles...

    I get the feeling that if his comment was written by anyone else there would have been a rather different interpretation. we all have prejudices that colour how we interpret what a person says, but they shouldn't allow the twisting of an argument in the way we saw above

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 18 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason,

    Has anyone gasped - or grasped - at the headline the other day about the Deriviatives Market the NZX is about to set up?? And here

    Why are "we" doing this? Why are "we" allowing this? I can't believe that NZ has failed to grasp the fact that hedge funds, derivatives and chasing "indices" is nothing but speculation and gambling. Gambling with money that indirectly comes from you and me. Betting on numbers or "indices". It's effing Lotto! Jesus Christ!

    Clicking the ticket for merely churning the money through the financial "system". These things f*&ked the world financial system over the last 2 to 3 years! Don't we learn?

    I love the term "products" that they have the gall to call them.

    It begs the question. Who benefits? It looks like the shareholders of the NZX are the main ones. Anyone on PS got any shares they want to part with?

    This cowboy country is still alive and clipping.

    It would be far far better to sort out better investment schemes that invest in NZ Inc. Come on guys/guyesses, why not use your intelligence, cunning and guile to invent some REAL benefit for the country rather than for the few.

    This right out of John Boy Land I venture. "I made money out of this therefore it must be good for the country". Yeah right.

    I think you get the idea that I'm pissed.

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Anyone on PS got any shares they want to part with?

    Yours for 220c if you're buying, my son.

    Although a broker might get you a better price:NZX

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

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