Posts by BenWilson
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The only marriage there is in NZ is state marriage. "Religious marriage" is a religious fiction. What matters legally is not the religious ceremony, but the civil paperwork. And if religious institutions don't want to offer that civil paperwork, then they don't need to be celebrants.
Yes, this is how I was married in a Catholic church despite being baptized Anglican, openly agnostic, bordering on atheism. I pretty much ignored all the non-binding God stuff rather like I don't take the words literally when I sing a song. It's clearly less of an issue to them that I don't believe in their God or anything about their religion, than it is if someone like Craig, who's been a Catholic for ... how long? wants to tie the knot with his long term partner. They did make us take marriage counseling, which was actually worthwhile in parts, and downright hilarious in others - the class on contraception was classic. You're asking for ridicule when you advocate the withdrawal method: "Hah! Now I can finally justify facials!". I wonder what advice they'd have for gays.
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One of the best waterpolo games I ever watched was my own club's women's team, the underdog, winning the national club champs. Generally it was pretty hard to get the men's team to show up for their games, but they were in the final so a special effort was made. The other club's men didn't bother, only a couple of them were there. It was amazing what a difference the crowd support made - we were in a festive mood and went ape about everything, from goals to good plays to biffo to dodgy referee calls to baiting their supporters. You could really see the women lifting their performance to the crowd, and also the other team sinking when, having slotted a goal there was a bit of polite clapping.
It made me realize that they came to most of our games and I'd become accustomed to that kind of support. I made a lot more of an effort after that.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Going beyond tolerance, one of my favourite images from Tahrir is of Christians protecting Muslims as they pray.
First time I've had to wipe tears from my keyboard in ages.
Like, for instance, Turkey? It seems to get on fine with most Western, Mid-Eastern and Far Eastern nations. With the possible exception of Armenia & Cyprus.
Yes, despite showing considerable backbone in resisting American requests to provide another launching point for the Iraq invasion.
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Nowhere else to put this:
RIP Frank Whitten.
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And you should’ve said “ anyone who is doing this as a business should already pay income tax for gains," since there’s a lot of avoidance going on.
Yes, or perhaps "anyone openly doing this as a business already....etc</q>
In this case, you, specifically.
Well, since we're doing handy tips for writers :-), you actually used "you" to mean "one", first. I expect this is what Dex is getting hung up on there. It wasn't confusing, btw. Except maybe to someone with ESL.
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>I have covered these points before:
All of them have been rebutted multiple times before too. Talk to the rebuttals and this discussion can move on. It's not like it's uncontroversial, there's plenty of opportunity for good clash, if you could just actually address the rebuttals made.
I haven't gone into this one yet, though, the point you make that rental property supply goes down if landlords exit the market, so that drives rentals up. It seems poorly conceived to me. I see only 2 scenarios here.
1. A landlord sells a property, and another landlord buys it. Net effect on supply = zero.
2. A landlord sells a property, and someone who was a renter buys it. Supply of rentals goes down by one property. But demand for it also goes down by one renter, who is now in their own home instead of renting. Net pressure on prices = zero.You're raising property developers as people who will be affected by CGT. I'm not convinced. As I understand it, anyone who is doing this as a business already pays income tax for gains (or if they do it as a company they pay company tax). Unless you're talking about people who are using the "no intention to make gains" loophole. Yes, those people will not be able to continue avoiding paying fair tax for their profits. How many people are doing this?
But certainly if development had more incentives, that would apply downward pressure on rents. This is a separate issue. I'm open to any actual ideas you have on how to encourage development, which is the only activity that actually creates more property. It seems to me from all the people I've met in recent years who develop property that their greatest rising cost is compliance. This is a tough one, because most compliance issues have arisen for good reason. Essentially, they are quality assurance, and theoretically should mean that better value property is being made. But I've heard literally hundreds of anecdotes about absolutely crazily unjustified costs - basically thousands of dollars being charged for someone to come and look at something and tick a box on a form. Also, extremely lengthy delays in this process, which also come at huge cost.
I'm not sure what central government can do with this - most of these costs are imposed by local government.
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Matthews says "consistent CGT will raise quite a lot of money", so where will that money come from? In my view it will come from rent – that is the stuff that tenants pay and landlords collect.
Actually, it comes from the capital gain itself, it's curiously accurately named. If there is no gain, there is no tax. Of course landlords can put rents up to cover the fact that their profits are now taxed, so as to try to squeeze out the same profit margin. But they don't actually need an excuse to do this - rents are skyrocketing not because of rising costs, but because of rising demand for property, and an undersupply. The question is not whether you can justify putting rent up, it's whether you can get away with it. Tenants don't give a shit about landlord's accounting problems - they just take the property they can afford. If no-one can afford, the landlord does actually have to put the price down, or have an empty property. It doesn't matter squat whether this means the landlord is actually losing money against their spreadsheet projections - they'll be losing a lot more if they're collecting no rent.
Matthew and Ben are the productive ones.
Why, thank you. But I expect you underrate yourself.
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I can consider for decades to come there will be an accute accomodation shortage - so I don't see it getting better for renters.
That really depends on how much property gets built, and population movement both homegrown and from immigration. But yes, there's not a lot of property development going on...part of the reason for this is because just holding property has better tax incentives.
So I will ask you the same question - where do you think an tax on unrealsied capital gains of rental property will be funded from??
For starters can you point to anyone in this 30 page long thread who has suggested taxing unrealized gains? Can we put that baby behind us?
You're begging the question, when you ask where the funds for CGT will come from. Only accountants parcel up funds and say "that comes from this and that comes from this". In practice, CGT will come out of the pockets of property investors, however they can find it. Yes, they might put up rents. Or they might charge more in their day jobs. Or they might just accept the tax rise and tighten their belts, exactly the way people paying income tax do when it goes up. They might sell the boat. Perhaps the government could introduce the tax at the same time as dropping income tax, and that would pay for it. How is it relevant where the money comes from? The most fundamental question everyone else here is considering is "what effect might it have on property investment", and the obvious answer is "it would make it less attractive". Which might tip the scales away from the near singlemindedness with which NZers get into property in the first place. It might channel the funds into more productive activity than buying an existing house and charging people to live in it. Hell, they might even think of building houses instead.
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The psychology of it is a little puzzling to me I confess.
There's lots of factors that come into play, and they matter differently to different people. Stability is a big factor for some, I think people with kids tend to think it matters a lot more. Being able to dick with the place matters to some - but other renters aren't bummed about just moving flats to get a better kitchen, or whatever facility they're after.
Annoying landlords can be an issue, but equally bad can be annoying neighbors, who you are usually stuck with as an owner. At least when you rent you don't groan in horror at the thought of the Mongrel Mob moving into your street, and what that's just done to your capital.
But as for the financial side of things, I think the reason we think property is such a sound choice is because we're such poor savers. Chicken and egg problem.
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I'm with Paul. There's nothing wrong with saying you don't find it attractive. That's not the same as saying everyone won't find it so, or that it should be changed.
Criticism of appearance might be a affronting when unasked for, but when it is asked for it should be honest. If I'm looking scruffy, and I wonder why women aren't showing any interest, I'd actually rather know that it's the scruffiness causing it, rather than, say, my offensive opinions or my sleazy behaviour.
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