Wheres the irony other than it proved the right wing scare mongering was just that?
Set up a Tax Working Group, to ensure that there is a better and fairer balance between the taxation of income and assets, in particular the capital gain associated with property speculation. The outcomes of this Working Group – if any – will not take effect until the 2021 tax yearThe Working Group will not consider increases to personal income or corporate taxes, or GST rates. The Working Group will not consider any proposals for an inheritance tax or any other tax changes that would apply to the family home or the land under it - regardless of its ownership structure.
Labour is not proposing any changes to current personal income or corporate tax rates. We will reverse National's proposed package of future tax cuts.
Instead, Labour will reinvest that money into families and core public services – such as health, education, and police. Our alternative Families Package will see 70% of families with children better off than under National’s tax cut package.Our current tax system taxes some forms of income but not others, and creates incentives for some forms of investment, particularly housing speculation. This results in unfairness between taxpayers, and it enables some to avoid paying their fair share of tax. New Zealand is one of only three OECD countries that does not have some form of tax on capital gains.
This situation has contributed to the current housing crisis, and the lowest home ownership rate in 66 years. Housing affordability has become a critical issue for many New Zealanders. Rising house prices are being driven by a variety of factors, including tax rules that favour investment in housing and discourage investment in other activities.
As a first step Labour will minimise the tax benefits that can be gained through speculation on houses. Labour will remove the current loophole that allows losses from rental properties to reduce the taxation paid on other sources of income for which the landlord is liable (so-called ‘negative gearing’).
Labour will also extend the ‘bright line test’ that taxes the profits made on the sale of properties other than the family home from two years to five years. This was the original recommendation of the Treasury that was ignored by National and will capture more people who are flipping investment properties for capital gain.Apple pays zero tax in NZ despite sales of $4.2 billionFor our tax system to have integrity, everyone needs to pay their fair share. Increasingly, New Zealanders are concerned that some large multinational companies are using aggressive tax practices to avoid their obligations to our country. The government has estimated that $300 million of revenue per year is being forgone, while the Tax Justice Network puts the figure at over $500 million.share on twitter
Labour will take strong action to ensure that multinational companies pay a fair share of tax, based on their genuine activities in New Zealand.
At the international level we support the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) programme of work.
At the bi-lateral level, we will review our tax treaties to identify areas in which new technology or business practices may have resulted in tax shifting out of New Zealand, and where appropriate will work with our international partners to resolve these issues.
Labour will collect an extra $200m per year from multinationals currently avoiding their New Zealand tax obligations by resourcing IRD with an additional $30m per year to crack down on multinational tax avoidance.
If multinationals aren’t prepared to pay their fair share, Labour will introduce a diverted profits tax, to enable New Zealand tax authorities to impose tax at a penalty rate if they believe that tax has been deliberately avoided.
The Australian Financial Review reported in 2014 on Apple's use of Irish subsidiaries to shift billions of profits out of Australasia.Judith Collins said a "minority" of international companies were exploiting rules to avoiding paying tax and "we do not consider the amount of tax paid by these multinationals is fair".
And last year the European Union took a dim view of Apple's Irish operations, punishing the company with a record $20b tax bill after concluding that it had used the territory to improperly pay a tax rate of just 2 per cent on its international earnings.
Google's New Zealand subsidiary paid just $393,000 in tax in 2017, despite an estimated revenue in the hundreds of millions.
Facebook paid just $43,000 in 2014.
Visa and Mastercard had filed to the Companies Office at the time of a 2016 story showed combined annual revenue of just $7.7 million, combined profit of $268,647, and a combined tax bill of just $257,109.
London-based Lafferty Group cited NZ as the seventh most profitable credit card market out of 72 countries it surveyed.
"Pre-tax profits reached $275 million in 2015, an increase of 2% compared to 2014. It is forecast to reach $297 million by 2018. Profit per card reached $105 in 2015, compared with $88 in 2010. It is forecast to reach $114 by 2018," Lafferty said in its report. At $105 per card, profitability in NZ was up $17, or 19.3%, over five years.
However, for accounting periods since 2015 subsidiaries of overseas companies are only required to file financial statements if they are deemed “large.”
The most recent financial statements they've filed show Visa NZ's Singaporean parent paid 4.3% income tax for the September 2016 year, and Mastercard NZ's parent paid 6.8% in the 2016 calendar year.
https://www.interest.co.nz/business/...ure-over-their
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