Wouldn't a tax threshold make more sense?

[cowpoos]

Is there an obvious reason why the Govt. don't just introduce, say, a $10,000 tax threshold?

It'd mean we'd all get the same saving and those on lower incomes would, proportionately, do better.

Everyone pays the lowest tax rate for the first $14,000 they earn...so it moots the changes between the tax scales. so low earners proportionally do the same as higher earns for that amount of income made.

[cowpoos]

Governments cop all the shit when crime goes up or people starve to death in the street.
Crime is higher in poorer areas and becomes unmanagable in areas of mass poverty. As a part of protecting their citizens governments should act to prevent crime and hardship - this is essentially what the benfit is intended for. It does get abused. It is also a hell of a lot better than having families starving in times of economic hardship as happened in the 20s and 30s.
As a result governments DO owe the worse-off citizens if not 'a living', a least adequate food and shelter.

and they do get adequete food and shelter...so if they want something more...they can get off there arse and work for crying out loud.

People like you are really fucking thick....please...please go to austrailia!!

[scracha]

Fairest would be scrap income tax completely. Put GST up to 30%. Make food, safety gear and fuel GST exempt.

Think about it.

[cowpoos]

Fairest would be scrap income tax completely. Put GST up to 30%. Make food, safety gear and fuel GST exempt.

Think about it.

Only needs to be 26.9% go get figures from treasury...even less if you account for inbound tourists paying gst.

[Milts]

and they do get adequete food and shelter...so if they want something more...they can get off there arse and work for crying out loud.

People like you are really fucking thick....please...please go to austrailia!!

I really do love the irony of you calling me thick while in the same post using the adverb 'there' in place of the pronoun 'their'.

Funny how when the tories are in and the lefties complain, we get told to fuck off to Aussie/EU/Denmark.

However I've never heard a leftie tell a nat to fuck off to the US when they complain about labour/the greens. Learn to accept other people's opinions as valid for christ's sake.

I simply do not understand the idea that because someone earns more (often a huge amount more) than someone else, it is due to their 'hard work'. You cannot tell me that Sam Morgan worked 8730 times harder (227 million, his profit, divided by 26k, the amount earned on minimum wage) than a single mother working as a cleaner to support her kids. Just because someone earned more does not mean they worked proportionally harder. If nothing else, you need at least recognise that society could not function if the minimum wage jobs were not done by someone. If you do not redistribute the wealth at least to some extent, you have what is called rebellion. This would be terrible for those on top, except that they can afford to bugger off overseas and then everyone else gets to clean up the mess.

In one of my POLSCI classes we looked at various governments which were run by the rich who then opted to keep their profits. The end result was mass starvation and lawlessness. (Many examples in Africa where a group would take power, run the diamond mines/[insert national resource here] using force to keep the population in check until they rebelled; the leaders then buggered off with the cash and the process was repeated by a different group. Much of the difference between democracies and dictatorships is this redistribution of wealth and care of the worker. It also happened in France in the 1790s, and led to the first 'modern' government). Like it or not, the government has a responsibility to redistribute the wealth among the people.

You cannot tell me that a system whereby 10% of the population owns 90% of the wealth is 'fair'. This is disturbingly close to becoming a reality. By taxing higher earners at a higher percentage, governments resolve this inequity at least to some extent.

People often harp on about the poorer people being too lazy, not wanting to work, or being able to be rich if only they tried. Some of this is certainly true; there are some success stories of people making everything from nothing, and some people certainly live on the dole because they would prefer it to working or are unused to the concept of a 40 hour working week. But turning nothing into millions is incredibly difficult and by no means the norm. Talk like this reminds me far too much of the aristocracy in the UK during the great depression, who were convinced that millions of people were starving because they were too lazy to work. They could honestly not comprehend that people were looking for work which wasn't there.

Grow up and face the reality that we live in an imperfect world and if we didn't take something from the more fortunate, the less fortunate would suffer en masse.

[IdunBrokdItAgin]

Sorry, but no. While proportionally it looks like they're much better off, with 16% vs 13%, in reality it equates to next to nothing. As a working student, this really sucks.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/new...ax-down-GST-up

As you can see, the mighty 16% translates into.... $0.45 per week. Sweet deal huh. Furthermore, for someone on $120k the gain is $56 per week - 12 times the salary, 124 times the saving (in dollars). If that isn't discriminatory agains those on lower incomes I don't know what is.
Another interesting angle:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post...attack-on-poor

So what I am reading from the above is that the cuts should have been even less tax to pay for lower income earners?

You do realise that most high earners already utilise trust tax rates to avoid paying the higher personal income rates? What the government did here was make that irrelevant - top income tax rate is now equal to the trust rate. Not all high income earners will not make the savings stated (as they are already paying tax at 33% through tax avoidance measures). What the government has done is save a shit load of IRD time and effort (read costs) investigating whether tax avoidance is actually tax evasion.

Savvy move if you ask me.

But, as ever, there will always be people demanding a bigger piece of the pie - even though they have done nothing to help bake the pie in the first place.

[Milts]

So what I am reading from the above is that the cuts should have been even less tax to pay for lower income earners?

You do realise that most high earners already utilise trust tax rates to avoid paying the higher personal income rates? What the government did here was make that irrelevant - top income tax rate is now equal to the trust rate. Not all high income earners will not make the savings stated (as they are already paying tax at 33% through tax avoidance measures). What the government has done is save a shit load of IRD time and effort (read costs) investigating whether tax avoidance is actually tax evasion.

Savvy move if you ask me.

But, as ever, there will always be people demanding a bigger piece of the pie - even though they have done nothing to help bake the pie in the first place.

I didn't say that the old system was fair.

And read my previous post explaining why they should be getting 'part of the pie'. You're welcome to disagree but at least have some sort of argument.

[IdunBrokdItAgin]

Grow up and face the reality that we live in an imperfect world and if we didn't take something from the more fortunate, the less fortunate would suffer en masse.

I believe that it is you who needs to face the reality of the imperfect world.

The use of the word "fortunate" would conjure up images of a lottery winner.

High income earners are not lottery winners (as fortune or luck is not generally involved) they are people who have put time and effort into a plan to amass assets or skills which can be utililised for future gain.

To want to reset everything, to make it fair/even from that point onwards, does not take into account an individual's (or their ancestors) effort prior to the point of reset.

To take from the "more fortunate" (to use your term) is to impose a penalty to those who wish to (or have already) advantage(d) themselves.

[eelracing]

To want to reset everything, to make it fair/even from that point onwards, does not take into account an individual's (or their ancestors) effort prior to the point of reset.

To take from the "more fortunate" (to use your term) is to impose a penalty to those who wish to (or have already) advantage(d) themselves.

Don't know about yours mate but my ancestors came here to get away from the class system referred to in Milts post earlier.

I have nothing against people improving there lot,but some want to keep advantaging themselves to the point of gross indecency.

Take a good look at Milts link re:'disturbingly close to becoming a reality'.

[Tank]

a better tax calculator that takes into account GST free rent mortgage etc https://nztaxonline.deloitte.co.nz/p...sonaltaxrates/ - makes the figures even better !

[marty]

Sorry, but no. While proportionally it looks like they're much better off, with 16% vs 13%, in reality it equates to next to nothing. As a working student, this really sucks.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/new...ax-down-GST-up

As you can see, the mighty 16% translates into.... $0.45 per week. Sweet deal huh. Furthermore, for someone on $120k the gain is $56 per week - 12 times the salary, 124 times the saving (in dollars). If that isn't discriminatory agains those on lower incomes I don't know what is.
Another interesting angle:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post...attack-on-poor

hang on - on $10k you pay $1300. On $120k we pay $33k. We earn 1200% more than you, but pay nearly 3000% more tax? And, as a low earner, don't you get a rebate of around 1/2 your tax as well?

Increase in rent sure - how about my increase in rates (a tax on a tax - that really fucks me off), power, school fees etc. I reckon THAT's discriminatory. Although my double time overtime tax payments are going to reduce heaps!

note: calculations NOT done by a bean counter - are probably wrong

[MSTRS:Me]

... For someone on the minum wage their annual income is $27000 or more...

... 26k, the amount earned on minimum wage...

I'd just like to point out that many people on minimum wage onlly have 30 hours a week or less work time. 30 hours is considered fulltime. That equates to $21060pa.

[F5 Dave]

. . .
I simply do not understand the idea that because someone earns more (often a huge amount more) than someone else, it is due to their 'hard work'. You cannot tell me that Sam Morgan worked 8730 times harder (227 million, his profit, divided by 26k, the amount earned on minimum wage) than a single mother working as a cleaner to support her kids. Just because someone earned more does not mean they worked proportionally harder. . . .

Maybe not harder, but smarter.
That empire that chap made brings lots of $ into the economy through tax etc & no doubt reinvestment. Bear in mind if TM wasn't established Ebay NZ would have flourished (as it has in US, UK, Aus etc) & as much money as poss siphoned off shore as possible.

In the real world the money has to come from somewhere, the world bank doesn't just award it to worthy people. But I do agree that inequity is to be avoided if possible. Just the real world isn't fair.

[Milts]

Maybe not harder, but smarter.
That empire that chap made brings lots of $ into the economy through tax etc & no doubt reinvestment. Bear in mind if TM wasn't established Ebay NZ would have flourished (as it has in US, UK, Aus etc) & as much money as poss siphoned off shore as possible.

In the real world the money has to come from somewhere, the world bank doesn't just award it to worthy people. But I do agree that inequity is to be avoided if possible. Just the real world isn't fair.

As opposed to how it is now, where Fairfax (an Australian media company) owns it instead? And Sam Morgan himself coming out in the media and saying it is unfair that he payed no capital gains tax?

It is a real issue balancing 'fairness' in terms of people keeping what they earn (or think they earn) vs avoiding massive wage discrepency. I did find the graph (in the link I posted earlier) of CEO salary as a multiple of average worker salary very interesting - CEOs are earning in the region of 350x to 500x the salary of the average worker... and this is leading up to a recession? Balancing what is 'fair' and what is 'right' is difficult and it will always be impossible to please everybody or achieve the perfect result. However I do not feel that reducing tax on the top 10 or 20% of society will legitimately help society as a whole and certainly not the bottom 50%.

I also have an issue with the 'smarter not harder' argument. A survey was conducted in two colleges in the USA in the same city - one an Ivy League college and the other a community college in a poorer, primarily black neighborhood. Something like 85% of those attending the community college had never used a PC in their lives - and these people are supposed to (in a 'fair' liberal society) be able to compete with people who've owned a laptop since age 5 by working smart? To further illustrate the example, Sam Morgan received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from his parents to start the business. Sure, it was an investment and not a gift, but how many people can ask their parents for that kind of money, and get it? Not to mention he had had the benefit of going through a public education system where IT literacy is taught or at least an option - at least our public education is, for the most part, capable of delivering good information to students, and University students have the student loan and student allowance scheme.

[SPman]

You do realise that most high earners already utilise trust tax rates to avoid paying the higher personal income rates? What the government did here was make that irrelevant - top income tax rate is now equal to the trust rate. Not all high income earners will not make the savings stated (as they are already paying tax at 33% through tax avoidance measures). What the government has done is save a shit load of IRD time and effort (read costs) investigating whether tax avoidance is actually tax evasion.

Why didn't they just raise the trust rate to 38%?