Desperate Cunliffe Tricky on Secondary Tax

David Cunliffe is being tricky by suggesting that Labour has a new plan to do away with secondary tax, National Party Revenue spokesman Todd McClay says.

“What Labour has announced today is being dressed up to look like a tax cut, but in reality it isn't,” Mr McClay says.

“In fact, Labour has largely announced what National has already got well underway through Inland Revenue’s Business Transformation programme.”

One of the first tasks of Business Transformation is to address the PAYE system, including secondary tax and end-of-year square-ups.

“We are working on moving the system towards real-time taxation, which will largely eliminate issues around secondary tax, provisional tax and other frustrating areas of tax compliance,” Mr McClay says.

The PAYE component of Business Transformation is scheduled to be completed by late 2015.

“Mr Cunliffe’s suggestion of coming up with more tax codes in the meantime is just an attempt to be seen to be doing something. The simple reality is that trying to make any further changes with the old tax system would delay the programme that is doing away with the current secondary tax arrangements,” Mr McClay says.

“Adopting an already existing government programme and trying to claim it as your own new initiative is another example of Mr Cunliffe's trickiness. All this announcement demonstrates is how short he is of positive things to say in this election campaign.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media