Free Press

ACT’s regular bulletin

ACT Stands Alone on Tax
ACT understands the real reason for the delay in Labour’s list announcement: they’re trying to make room for Steven Joyce. Joyce has joined the socialists by ruling out tax cuts. He is not even sure about bracket adjustments, saying “I’d like to one day. Can I do it this time? I still don’t know. Maybe.” This is a real quote.

Yes We Can!
To borrow a campaign slogan, yes we can. Treasury forecasts $20 billion of surpluses coming down the line, and the political contest this year is what to do with them. The Greens, Labour, and NZ First all have a simple answer: spend it. National doesn’t know. ACT is the only party on the side of the taxpayer. There’s got to be more than a couple of per cent of New Zealanders who disagree with the Government spending another $20 billion of our money just because they can. Tax is one reason why ACT will do well this election.

What About Debt?
As ACT has pointed out, we do have an enormous debt problem, but it is not a public debt problem, it is a household debt problem. The figures? The Government has about $90 billion in gross debt. There is $400 billion of gross private debt. Breaking it down to New Zealand’s 1.6 million households, that’s around $56,000 each in government debt, compared to $250,000 in private debt.

Interest Rate Rises are Coming
What happens next? As inflation returns, interest rates will rise, along with mortgage rates. (The highest mortgage rates in recent times have occurred when New Zealand First has held the balance of power, but we digress). These rises are going to put serious pressure on household and business balance sheets. Another reason why taxes must be lowered.

Fiscal Creep
As ACT has long said, fiscal creep is not just an unkind name for Michael Cullen. It is real, and it stealthily takes money from New Zealanders. Over the past five years, taxpayers have paid $2.1 billion extra thanks to their incomes getting pushed into higher brackets by inflation. So New Zealanders have already earned $2.1 billion in tax cuts, just to get even.

Trump Starts a Tax War
One of the appealing things about Donald Trump is that he’s got no respect for the various international bureaucracies such as the OECD with their campaign for an international tax cartel. He is going to attract business the old-fashioned way, by offering lower taxes for people to bring their business home. New Zealand has the fourth highest tax on capital of all OECD countries, we should take note.

More Detail to Come
On May 11th, two weeks before the budget, ACT will announce its tax policy. It will be a policy based on a simple observation that has sadly been lost by even the National Party: it was the taxpayer’s money to start with.

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