Posts by Bart Janssen
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So as far as I can tell the arguments against it are:
It might be a bit difficult to do right
All taxes are evil
and
Labour proposed it and we oppose anything Labour saysGiven there are a whole bunch of countries that have variations on a CGT theme it does seem as though we could pick one that works really well and implement it and then we wouldn't have to make the same mistakes as other people have.
Sigh I'm left with hoping the ABs lose the RWC because that is about the only thing I can see able to damage the National Party halo at the moment.
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Sandringham Road is nice and smooth now. The power lines are underground. All the cafes have been spruced up and a whole bunch more have opened. We have some (admittedly not awesome, but some) public transport in Auckland directly as a result. So my local infrastructure has improved long term. Hotels, motels and people with a bed in a caravan will make money, which is nice for them. Australians will whinge about us taking money from them, all win.
No I won't try and drive anywhere on game nights, but I don't now anyway. No I don't expect to be able to bowl up to any restaurant and just get a table while the cup is on, but I tend to book usually anyway. Auckland will be crowded and busy for a month of my life, that isn't such a hardship.
I won't go to any games but I will probably watch quite a few on TV. The partisan side of me hope the ABs win, but I fear that means another National government if they do.
I don't think the RWC will make money, my guess is it will lose quite a lot really, but we will have upgraded a lot of infrastructure for the cup that we will use happily for decades.
No I don't hate the RWC. I do dislike the hype, and some of the blatant statistics fails.
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What attach button ... where?
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Hard News: The Orcon Great Blend 2011 in…, in reply to Russell Brown,
That's actually quite a fun idea ...
Damn but you're brave.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to nzlemming,
ditto - except I've been reading it before sleep ... quite tired today ...
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Hard News: A Capital Idea?, in reply to Heather Gaye,
All other things being equal, if you have to pay tax on the capital gain, you no longer have the full value of a (new) house. I think that’s reasonable
No. It only applies if your home gained in value and then only carves off 15% of that gain.
So you buy a $500k home, live in it with your insignificant other, 2 cats, miscellaneous lazy children for a while. Then you sell it and someone pays $600k for it, woohoo you're rich! Govt takes $15k. Real estate agent takes ~$20k.
You now have $565k to buy a new home. No you can't afford to buy the home you just sold. Unless you've earned some money while you were living in that home or paid off some capital from the mortgage.
But the trick is everyone else is in exactly the same position. Every home seller and buyer is in the same position and the market price will reflect that. That's why applying CGT to every home is fairer than only applying it to additional properties, but hey you do what you can.
Or you can stay put in your $600k home.
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Hard News: A Capital Idea?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
I disagree.
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 to be.
However there is a huge political difference between taxing investment properties and family homes - especially for a society unused to CGTs.
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Hard News: A Capital Idea?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
why it is “fair” when that asset is the “family home”
It cannot be fair
No haiku needed for this
Only politicsIn 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 very well, so raising it as a criticism is disingenuous.
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Hard News: A Capital Idea?, in reply to Nick Kearney,
the general issue of whether that $15K is better left in the hands of individuals
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 of making money - in most societies the govt takes a bit of any money you make to manage shit, shit you want. Why should there be a huge loophole where folks can make money - serious money - without paying tax?
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One thing it's worth reminding the "end of the world is nigh if we have CGT" folks is - sure you pay CGT, so if you made $100k capital gain you pay $15k to the govt - you still get $85k "profit". If the rate matched you highest tax rate that might get more interesting.
All a 15% CGT does is shift the balance a little away from a capital gain mentality.
It's also worth noting that every tax review (by folks who are meant to know about such things) in the last 3 decades has recommended a CGT.