Alliance Financial Transaction Tax seriously flawed

Martin Poulsen, the National Party candidate for Auckland Central said there were major faults in Alliance tax policy.

“Last week the Alliance announced that it wanted to work with the New Zealand securities industry to issue bonds to help its DFC type bank. This week the Alliances announcement of a Financial Transaction tax would do precisely the opposite”.

“Under an FTT regime, the New Zealand securities and savings industries and most likely the Treasuries of many New Zealand corporates would quickly relocate to Sydney. Avoidance of this ill-conceived tax would be relatively straightforward”.

“However, lost would be the future possibility of New Zealand being a banking and settlements centre with the advantages of low costs and high quality staff. So would significant business tax dollars”.

“This would reinforce Sydney’s dominance as a financial centre and the New Zealand public would pay more for banking services”.

Poulsen continued, “The Alliance seems to be in denial over the reality of the international mobility of capital. Worryingly the Alliance does not understand the benefit of liquid capital markets. Their claims that this tax would raise as much as GST are way off target”.

“The Alliances Financial Transaction Tax is a discredited scheme and its proposal lacks a serious understanding of NZ business. It would add a further risk premium to New Zealand capital markets”, said Martin Poulsen.

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