Tax Justice Aotearoa (TJA) applauds the release of data from the IRD’s High Wealth Individuals Research Project today, which confirms an extreme inequity between the top end of wealth in New Zealand and middle-income earners.

“The 8.9% (mean) effective tax rate paid by this sample of New Zealand’s wealthiest is far too low, and if GST is included only rises to 9.4%. The shocking disparities highlighted by this research demands further action,” says TJA spokesperson Glenn Barclay.

“Compared to a year ago when New Zealand was, at best, only able to exercise guesswork on what that rate was, we have now leapt above other countries in our knowledge of the actual facts. This research really is groundbreaking.

“It is crucial that this data is used to inform a rigorous, well overdue tax debate, and also - most importantly - that government uses this research to take action.

“We are encouraged that the Minister has recommitted to seeing the passage of a Tax Principles Act into law and to, as he put it, ‘re-reading’ other recommendations of the Tax Working Group from 2019. More work needs to be done.”

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