Scoop's Election 05: Taxation Debate


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Debates ... Education : Taxation : Foreign Policy



National's Tax Cut Calculator
Labour's Family Tax Relief Calculator
National's Student Loan Calculator
Labour's Student Loan Calculator


  • Labour - The real cost of National’s borrowing programme


  • Cullen Prepares To Bring Out The Jandals For National's Petrol Tax Talk - “National is at some stage in this campaign going to have to get to grips with the detail of their policy,” Finance Minister Michael Cullen said today. He was commenting on contradictory statements from John Key over how much National’s cynical undertaking to cut 5 cents off petrol excise for six months would cost. “The confusion shows the promise as the back-off-the-envelope exercise it is,” Dr Cullen said. See... Key all over the place again

    ALSO:
  • National - National pledges relief on petrol excise
  • Labour - National: more flip flops than a dying fish
  • NZ Govt - Cullen Releases Reports On Petrol
  • NZ Govt. - Petrol musings the latest flip flop
  • Green Party - Subsidising fuel will make things worse


  • Scoop Image: Michael Cullen Sept 5 2005.On The Back-Foot: Labour Holds Pre-Caucus Press Conferences - Labour Awakens: Finance Minister Michael Cullen held Monday a press conference to attempt to explain his view on why National's tax policy will not work. Later PM Helen Clark held a brief Pre-Caucus conference outside Premier House. Click on the links below to listen to the standup in .MP3 audio. See... Pics/Audio: Michael Cullen On National's Budget and Cullen's powerpoint presentation and Scoop Audio: PM's Pre-Caucus Standup
    ALSO:
  • Scoop Link: Memo – Brash Advised To Buy Election

  • Labour - Key can’t even make next year’s figures add up


  • Easton Examines The Affordability Of National's Tax Cuts - I will not say much about the unsurprising fact that the party of the left concentrates its tax reductions on those with lower incomes and the party of the right’s proposals are more generous to the rich. That is the nature of politics. There is a bigger difference between the two on the magnitude of the tax cuts. A few decades ago you might have been surprised to be told that the party of the left was the fiscal conservatives and the party of the right was the fiscal radicals. See... Easton: What The Tax Debate Is Really About

     Scoop Image: National's John Key and Labour's Michael Cullen. Audio and Video: Leaders And Finance Spokespeople Talk About The Economy - Michael Cullen, John Key, Winston Peters, Rodney Hide, Rod Donald, Gordon Copeland had 5 minutes each to answer the following questions on tax, government spending and free trade. See... Five Party Leaders Quizzed On Progress
    ALSO:
  • Video: Six Finance MPs Quizzed On The Economy


  • Audio:Election Briefing - Alastair Thompson IVs John Key


  • Centre for Independent Studies (Australia) - Tax Myths Debunked


  • Scoop Image: Steve Maharey.National's Tax Cut Likely To Increase Child Poverty In NZ - Maharey - "In its most cynical and mean-spirited policy to date National has announced it will help pay for its tax cuts by cancelling the $10 a week per child Family Support increase scheduled for April 2007," Steve Maharey said. The impact of this change would cut deep into the pockets of low income families. The incomes of 125,000 beneficiary families would be reduced by an average of $20 a week, pushing thousands of children below the poverty line. See... Child poverty is the price for National's tax cuts
    MORE:
  • Child Poverty Action Group - CPAG: Poorest Miss Out Once Again

  • Barnardos - Collaborate for kids - challenge to politicians


  • Peters: An Economic Plan For All New Zealanders Part One


  • National Party Tax Cut Policy Details Announced


    Scoop Image: Don Brash in full flight at National’s campaign launch. - National Party Leader Don Brash has unveiled a plan to significantly restructure the tax system, providing fair tax relief and targeted family assistance worth about $3.9 billion by the third year. See... Brash - Getting ahead with National & Brash Speech: Getting ahead with National. Meanwhile… National Party Finance spokesman John Key says Michael Cullen and Helen Clark can no longer credibly claim National's plan for fair tax and family assistance will lead to an increase in interest rates. See... National's tax plan given the nod by experts
    ALSO:
  • Scoop Video: Brash Announces Tax Policy (raw file)

  • Raw Audio: Brash/Key Announce Tax Policy (Full Speech & Conf.)

  • National - Superannuitants benefit by $20 from Nats' tax pack


  • Cullen Accuses National Of Targeting Tax Cuts To The Selfish - Finance Minister Michael Cullen today discovered the details of National's tax policy. Mr Cullen gave a short speech and interview outside his office this afternoon and predicted that services would have to be cut back to make way for National's tax. See... Scoop Audio: Cullen Reaction To National Tax Cuts
    ALSO:
  • NZ Govt - Unfair, unaffordable, unworkable and hypocritical

  • NZ Govt - National Party tax calculator misleads voters

  • NZ First - Peters: An Economic Plan For All New Zealanders

  • Green Party - National's tax bribe will fall flat

  • United Future NZ - Many still better off with UF

  • ACT- Tax cuts: simpler, flatter, faster - ACT

  • Progressive Party - National's tax cuts won't help living standards

  • Deloitte - Thomas Pippos on National's Tax announcements

  • Federated Farmers - Cancelling Carbon Tax A Good Idea

  • EMA - Nationals’tax cuts equitable, low compliance

  • Newmarket BA - Tax cuts great for Auckland cash registers

  • Business NZ - National's proposed tax cuts good for growth

  • EMA - Kyoto tax liability vital election consideration


  • John Key. National Outlines Fiscal Plan - National Party Finance spokesman John Key has outlined National’s approach to tax and spending. “Our fiscal strategy recognises the importance of tax as a significant driver in people’s willingness, desire and ability to work, to gain skills, to save and to take risks,” Mr Key said at a financial briefing today. National’s fair tax and family package will be phased in over the next three years, rising to an annual total of $3.9 billion in the 2008/09 year. National’s fiscal strategy is focused on better quality public spending and a fair tax system that rewards hard work. See... Getting ahead with National
    ALSO:
  • Nats - National's five point plan

  • Govt - Nat budget amateurish, unconvincing and dangerous


  • Election Battle Between Targeted And Across The Board Tax Cuts - Scoop Report: Alastair Thompson writes that Finance Minister Michael Cullen unveiled the economic projections which will form the playing field for the economic debate of the election campaign, an economic playing field with little apparent room for immediate tax cuts as promised by the ACT and National Party. However as soon as the Pre-EFU briefing was over Dr Cullen nevertheless announced a $1.3 billion tax cut policy for middle income New Zealand families. See... Post Pre-EFU The Tax Cut Competition Heats Up
    ALSO:
  • Labour - Family tax relief package

  • Labour - Family Tax Relief: Q and A, Scenarios

  • National - Clark/Cullen confirm rampant overtaxation

  • NZ First - The “Working For Labour” Package

  • ACT- Public support for tax cuts spooks Labour

  • Green Party - Great for mid-income Kiwis; what about the rest?
  • Labour - National says forget the kids’ sport


  • National to send out a million 'Taxathon' pamphlets The National Party is putting tax back on the election agenda over the next week with the delivery of nearly a million 'Taxathon' pamphlets to mailboxes throughout the country.

    Will Tax Cuts Be Used to Complete 1990s 'Unfinished Business' ? - Acclaimed New Zealand documentary maker, Alister Barry, has been following Donald Brash's career for nearly two decades. Mr Barry considers Dr Brash wants massive tax cuts in order to create a "strategic deficit". “Strategic deficit” refers to a political technique used by President Ronald Reagan and his new right budget director, David Stockman to downsize the state. See... Don Brash and the “Strategic Deficit”

    Michael Cullen. Time For Brash To Come Clean On Tax Policy: Labour - Finance Minister Michael Cullen today released a record of contradictory statements by National on when they will announce their tax policy. “The only constant is that the date keeps evaporating further and further into the future. This is making the dance of the seven veils look like an unseemly dash for the shower,” Dr Cullen said. See... For the record
    ALSO:
  • Cullen - National’s numbers don’t add up.

  • United Future - Dunne: Why Wait Another Month For National?


  • Brian Easton: The State Of The Nation
    12 July: Respected economist Brian Easton, celebrated particularly for his work researching poverty levels, today gave a speech looking at the central election issue of whether promised substantial income tax cuts are affordable or indeed fiscally sustainable. See…Brian Easton: The State Of The Nation

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    Hunger For Freedom: Julie Webb Pullman On Reaction To Hunger Strike Deal In Gaza

    Despite repeatedly stating that a key demand was an end to administrative detention, and that no partial offer would be accepted, an Israeli offer was yesterday accepted by the Higher Committee for the Hunger Strikers on behalf of the prisoners. Although Israel has agreed to release 19 prisoners from solitary confinement - several of whom have been in isolation for more than ten years - and to lift the ban on family visits for prisoners from Gaza, the agreement states only that administrative detention will not be ‘renewed’ automatically and that after six months, the prisoner must be released, or charged. Current administrative detainees will be released, or charged, at the end of their current sentence. (video by Julie Webb-Pullman - Nakba Vox-pops with Gazans)More>>

    REPORTS ON THE STRIKE END:

    Julie Webb-Pullman: Gaza.Scoop.ps – Real Time News From Gaza

     

    Binoy Kampmark: Getting On The Bus: Obama And Same Sex Marriage

    The gay marriage debate in New Jersey has gone national, with President Obama throwing his own hat in the ring with resounding approval for same-sex unions. Evangelicals are shuddering, and various pro-Obama supporters are shaking their heads. More>>

    The Afghan Peace Volunteers: An Afghan Okinawa

    There is no U.S. troop withdrawal in 2014. We are ordinary Afghans wishing for peace, and we have eyes and ears and feelings of love and despair, so please read on.

    The Washington Post, in reporting the recent signing of the "U.S. Afghan Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement", stated that U.S. trainers and Special Operations troops that remain beyond 2014 will live on Afghan bases.” More>>

    David Swanson and Leah Bolger: "We Did Not Choose This War" And Other Hypocrisies

    "We did not choose this war. This war came to us on 9/11. We don't go looking for a fight. But when we see our homeland violated, when we see our fellow citizens killed, then we understand what we have to do."

    These are the words that President Obama used on Tuesday to describe the Afghanistan war, but they would have been more appropriately said by any Afghan citizen. More>>

    Gordon Campbell: On The Government’s Self-Defeating Plans For Universities

    Steven Joyce happens to hold a set of portfolios central to the country’s economic planning and future direction. Joyce is the Minister of Economic Development, the Tertiary Education Minister and the Minister of Science and Technology. Theoretically, this should allow him to co-ordinate the government’s efforts in those three vital areas. Yet in his recent announcements on student loans, Joyce’s left hand did not appear to know what his right hand was doing. More>>

    Jens Christian Lund: Why Should We Care About Fate Of Iranian Dissidents In Iraq?

    The fate of a group of Iranian dissidents in Iraq may seem trivial compared to the big issues on stage in the Middle East and other areas of the world. Since I became member of the Danish Parliament, I have tried to follow the situation in Iran and ... More>>

    Chris Hedges: The Implosion Of Capitalism

    When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be ... More>>

    Franklin Lamb: Egypt Just Annulled Mubarak’s Natural Gas Giveaway

    The Egyptian people are demanding the return of their sovereignty. According to recent opinion surveys they believe it was partially ceded to Israel by the two post-Nasser dictators, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, at the behest of American administrations, ... More>>

    David Swanson: The Global War on Terror, in the original German

    Have we killed as many people as Hitler did? No, not in the same manner. But by sins of both commission (Iraqis bombed and shot, for example) and omission (children starving and suffering from preventable illness, for example) of course we have. And we have the potential to quite easily kill many more.

     
     
     
     
     
     
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