If the Tax Working Group
recommends an inheritance tax in all-but-name, the
Government should declare it dead-on-arrival, says the
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in
response to comments made by Sir Michael
Cullen in Wellington today.
Taxpayers’
Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “The Government
ruled an inheritance tax out of scope in the Tax Working
Group’s Terms of Reference, but Sir Michael Cullen says a
majority of the Group has found a way to include it. Warping
a capital gains tax to implement a death tax by stealth
would be a betrayal of those terms.”
“Taxpayers were
told the role of the Working Group was to modernise the tax
system. It’s actual task appears to be preparing the
country for an ideological tax
grab.”
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