Posts by Damian Christie
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I spoke to another Nat this morning - this time an MP who also agreed that CGT is a good idea, and if we were designing a system from scratch, it would definitely play a part. Again, his concern was increasing the overall tax paid, rather than how it was best collected.
Also, I'm a bit swimming in figures here, but earlier on when I made the comment about the rich paying most of the tax, to which @Rich responded with some figures showing actually no, I just noticed this on DPF's blog....
http://networkedblogs.com/knlaH
Anyone with more time/brains than me wanna tell me which one is right, or are we just at cross-purposes?
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"When you said your leadership would lift ACT's polling into 'double figures', did you realise that '2' is not a double figure?"
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Michael Laws, still the only exception to the "it's not OK" campaign.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to bmk,
Yes so people here really can’t complain about the tax we pay.
Yes, they can, if they want to. There are plenty of countries with less tax, and a number of my friends have gone to live and work in them. You can’t just point to a country that has higher tax than us and say ‘see’, any more than you can point to a country with a higher gender wage gap than ours and insist women should stop complaining about that.
And so all the kiwis moving to Australia aren’t doing it to escape our oppressive taxes either.
No-one said they were, not here at least. It probably has a lot to do with the 30% higher wages and brighter economic outlook.
As I (and others) have said before it’s funny how National keep talking about catching up with Australia but seem unwilling to bring in any Australian style policies here.
So you think that the key to Australia’s current economic success is it’s progressive tax system? Screw mineral wealth, those top tax rates will sort things out.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to martinb,
but I think it is wrong to suggest that Key is dictating the discussion over it
Yeah, that was over-simplistic of me, I simply meant that it certainly ain't being dictated by Labour, whose fricken policy it is. And knowing the media fairly well, they'll be reluctant to re-run the "Labour to introduce CGT" headline a week after they first did, simply to get Labour's side of the story.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Stephen Judd,
As to the businesses we can least afford to have leaving being portable, well no. Dairy farms are not portable, and they are the engine of our current economy
Yup, and if you think our future prosperity lies in shipping milk powder overseas, then there's another thing we'll have to agree to disagree on.
*EDIT (having read the rest of your post): I actually do think there's a point where living in New Zealand, or at least basing your business and therefore tax revenue stream, becomes less choice, especially when you're young and enterprising and have a kick-arse idea. I simply can't accept that there's absolutely no correlation between tax rates and retaining people who have other options, but I'm certainly not saying there's an absolute cause-effect relationship where everyone will abandon the sinking ship.
I'm going to duck out of this now, because it's the weekend, and also because I think some time ago I heard the clunk of metal on metal you get when people disagree over fundamentals.
I'm off to make some more money.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I was working to list the various failures of Telecom management – but hey, I don’t need to
Exactly - imagine how bad they'd be if they only got paid 1/20th of what they get now....
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So I’m scratching here. What exactly is the effect of tax refugees fleeing on our tax base?
Let me help you find that itch – you’re assuming that the business isn’t portable, because it is either bricks and mortar and must be sold, or services New Zealanders. The businesses we can least afford to leave overseas aren’t.
Also, can I point out that my arguments are being reduced rather illogically here. I spoke of Atlas Shrugged in relation to capping salaries at $360,000, not of the reintroduction of a 39c tax rate. There are plenty of reasons why it’s more attractive to move overseas already, and plenty of reasons why it’s great to live here, I simply see higher tax rates as adding another “con” to the list.
And as @Giovanni seemed to agree with Rik above, regardless of whether Telecom CEO is in the same bracket as the teacher, he already pays shitloads more tax than the teacher. Everything Giovanni says, about Reynolds paying more $$ because it’s decent and so forth, applies under PROPORTIONAL taxation. I don’t see why making it even steeper at the top is objectively the “right thing to do”.
FWIW, and while I’m certainly not in their camp, Douglas policy is not just flat tax – it also includes a guaranteed minimum income. This has the same (general) effect as a lower marginal tax rate, or $5000 tax free and so forth. And if that guaranteed minimum income is set at a decent level, then I’m not opposed to that, even if, shock horror, it’s something ROGER DOUGLAS agrees with. He also voted for homosexual law reform and supports medical marijuana… should I change my views on that too?
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Stephen Judd,
Would Telecom operate without a CEO?
No, but if the salary was capped at $361,000 or whatever arbitrary figure we decide is 'enough', they might be quite a shitty CEO.
The idea that there is someone to replace everyone ignores the fact that some people actually create jobs and draw money into NZ by the businesses they create. And not all their wealth is created on the blood of exploited workers. Sometimes its created by having a fucking good idea that lots of people want, hopefully lots of overseas people. And we could use more of these types of people, and we could use more of them staying here too I reckon. And I don't think any of the ideas I've heard further either of these goals.
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I guess this is where we come down to different philosophies. I don't think making money is a bad thing. Even shitloads.
And capping maximum salaries to that of the PM? You wanna see the people already paying by far the lion's share of the tax all fuck off overseas? I don't want to start quoting Ayn Rand, really I don't, but that's a good way to make Atlas Shrug....