The Government is hiding behind a wall of secrecy on its taxation of charities by refusing to give the public access to the submissions on its ruthless proposal to tax charities, National's Revenue spokesperson Annabel Young said today.

National strongly opposes the Labour Government's proposal to tax and regulate the work charities do because the taxation will severely hinder charities saving funds for the future.

"Charities are very worried that they will be forced to close down. The Government's proposal drew a huge number of submissions, well over 1000, but Government is refusing to allow anyone access to them.

"I have had complaints from charities who made submissions and want to see what the other submissions said.

"I have received copies of many of the submissions and I will be asking those charities if I can make their submissions public. If the government won't make this a public process, then I will.

"It is bad enough that the Government proposes this sort of robbery from charities that will siphon money from them to Government coffers, without hiding the real results of the submissions.

"Many charities have told me they are afraid the Government will make decisions without any further discussion. They have a right to know why there's so much secrecy around what should be an open process," Annabel Young said.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>