More taxes equals a slower economy & fewer jobs

The Greens/Labour recipe of more and higher taxes would stall New Zealand's economic recovery just when we are getting back on our feet after the Global Financial Crisis, National’s Associate Finance spokesman Steven Joyce says.

"The Greens have proposed a 40 per cent top tax rate that would affect many hard-working New Zealanders, including school principals, doctors, and many small business owners," Mr Joyce says.

"We've been here before. A 40 per cent tax rate is damaging to the economy because it increases tax avoidance, penalises hard work, and sends some of our best and brightest offshore.

"And it is of course just another in a long list of new taxes Labour and the Greens want to introduce including a capital gains tax, a big carbon tax, taxes on water use, higher personal taxes, and regional fuel taxes.

"Just when the New Zealand economy is heading in the right direction and we are growing the largest number of new jobs in a decade, the Greens want to go back to the old tax and spend approach that clearly didn't work in the lead up to the GFC.

“Back then, our best and brightest were flooding out the door for better opportunities in Australia. Now migration out to Australia has stopped.

“Back then, welfare rolls were already growing because of our domestic recession. Now 1600 people a week are moving off welfare and into work because of our growing economy.

"Back then, government spending had jumped by 50 per cent in just five years, pushing floating mortgage rates close to 11 per cent and leaving us with forecasts of budget deficits and soaring debt into the future."

Mr Joyce says the economic recipe that's working includes lower, not higher, taxes and a government that is relentlessly focussed on growing jobs and getting people off welfare support and into meaningful work.

"National's economic plan is working for New Zealand. We have just become one of the fastest growing economies in the OECD. Keeping with the plan is the best way of helping people the opportunity to get off welfare and into work. We should not go back to the failed recipes of the past," Mr Joyce says.

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