Posts by Rich of Observationz
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OnPoint: Why does the top 10% paying…, in reply to Keith Ng,
The only way they could find out would be to require major asset sales and purchases to be declared on tax returns, even if they didn't attract any tax.
I suppose stats/IRD could estimate a figure by looking at a sample of properties (e.g. from rating records) figuring out the beneficial owners and correlating that with their tax position to get the average capital gain for taxpayers in each income group. Not something you could do without governmental powers of delving, and even then not easy.
One estimate of the untaxed income would come from the dairy sector: $26mln in corporate and personal income tax during '09. With dairy exports in the $11bln range, that's a lot of unpaid tax.
Either farmers do it for love, or for the capital gain - I'm suspecting the latter.
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Functionally, capital gains are deferred income.
They aren't taxed in NZ because there is a political desire to feed the upper middle classes free, untaxed money. The IRD doesn't collect figures because they aren't taxed. You are only obliged to declare them if you are a property trader (something practically nobody is).
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Hard News: Circumstance and coincidence, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Also sheds light on the process as advertised at the time.
According to this the PM asked Mateparae "out of the blue" to take on the office of G-G in (logically) February 2011, six months after one would have expected a decision to have been made according to the process above.
Maybe this was all due to the late Wilson Whineray's illness, but if that was the case, how come we haven't been told?
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http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/the-chosen-few/selection-process
Since 1972 all Governors-General have been New Zealand residents. Nowadays, about a year before the serving Governor-General's term comes to an end, Cabinet selects the successor. After sounding out its pick, the prime minister advises the Queen. If she is happy, the leader of the Opposition is consulted, and the recruitment process is concluded.
If that is true, then Phil Goff should have been consulted in the winter/spring of 2010 about Mateparae (or someone else's) potential appointment as G-G. Interesting to know if this happened?
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Hard News: Circumstance and coincidence, in reply to Matthew Poole,
The law makes it clear that the appointment of the head of the GCSB is entirely my prerogative, and lays out no process.
I think that brings the process into the scope of general public service appointment practice.
The Governor General on the other hand, *is* appointed by the PM advising the sovereign and is not subject to any such restraints. The PM can even appoint themselves if they feel that appropriate.
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Hard News: Circumstance and coincidence, in reply to Russell Brown,
Governor-generals serve a five year-term – everyone knows when a replacement will be required. How on earth would you accidentally appoint the guy you want to another very senior role when you’ve had five freakin’ years to think about a successor?
Well exactly.
August 2010: Key appoints Mateparae, the then Chief of Defence Force as GCSB director, to take office in Feb2011
March 2011: Key announces Mateparae will be the next G-G, to take office in AugustIt's hard to imagine that there wasn't a good idea of who was in the running for both posts and that when appointing Mateparae to the GCSB role, it wasn't agreed that he was no longer available as a possible G-G.
I suppose a reasonable explanation might be that all the alternative G-G candidates were unavailable/unsuitable at the time of appointment. Is the advice behind appointment to the G-G post unavailable as "royal magic", or can it be OIA'd?
Also, it's really interesting how avidly the government's spin machine flew into action on this as illustrated upthread - that, if nothing else would suggest that Campbell is onto something.
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Our PM explains away Dotcom by insisting the Key family spends their free time in America., perhaps overdoing the spirit of ANZUS
All US government operatives stationed overseas get home leave.
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I think it may be a traditional (post-1942) Russian thing to conflate any threat from the (geographical) west with fascism, Nazis having been the last group to attempt an invasion of Russia. Certainly the Soviet posture was to a large extent driven by a fear that 1942 might one day be repeated.
Also, having Russia and Nato spend their time and money probing each others defences with planes and warships isn't such a bad idea. They managed to do it for 40 years without escalating into warfare, and it absorbs their defence budget and prevents colonial adventuring. (If Britain and the US have to maintain tank armies on the Polish border, they won't have any defence budget left to invade anywhere).
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I guess it's possible to have a model where it's legal to sell (some) drugs face-face on an informal basis but not to operate a storefront.
Which creates a highly unregulated market, but not one that's in people's faces, if that's what people object to.