Responding to the Government’s decision to
give around $300 million to
Amazon as a sweetener for filming a TV series in
New Zealand, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman
Louis Houlbrooke says:
“As a matter of
simple waste, this is striking, equal to $161 for every
household. Who would seriously name Amazon as the most
deserving recipient of our hard-earned tax dollars?”
“But there’s something more disturbing about these
subsidies, supported by both National and Labour. They fuel
the dodgy practice of multinational companies playing
different governments off against each other in order to
secure the largest handouts possible. Even if we’d failed
to secure the TV show, the Government’s participation in
this bidding war would still have screwed taxpayers in some
other country.”
“The fairest way to attract
business to New Zealand is with low taxes across the board,
rather than ad hoc handouts for photo-friendly industries
and
businesses.”
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