Kerre Woodham: The country we want costs more than we're willing to pay

About this episode

Kerre Woodham discusses the implications of taxation and government revenue in New Zealand as it becomes a key election issue.

The topic of tax has been in the news recently and it will stay in the news. It’s set to become an election issue with one of the few policies that Labour's actually committed to being a Capital Gains Tax – possibly more taxation/revenue measures. Watch the politicians dance on the head of a pin in the lead up to the election. The Fitch report, which looks at New Zealand's ability to pay its bills, said that a Labour Party coalition with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would emphasise revenue measures as a means of making ends meet. The authors of the report said the National Party-led coalition would focus on expenditure constraint. There's been all sorts of argy bargy and we can go into that a little bit later, but already, even when we start talking about tax and about Labour introducing a Capital Gains Tax and more tax, it's said like it's a bad thing. Like it's a dreadful thing to contemplate more tax.  And yet, how else are we going to pay for the sort of country that we want, that we used to have, that we hear mythical stories about around the fireside from our forebears? Liam Dann has a column in the New Zealand Herald, Inside Economics, and in the column this morning…

People in this episode

Host: Kerre Woodham

Topics covered

• taxation
• election issues
• capital gains tax
• government revenue
• New Zealand economy

Keywords

• tax
• capital gains tax
• Labour Party
• National Party
• New Zealand economy
• election
• revenue measures

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Labour Party, Greens, Te Pāti Māori, National Party, New Zealand Herald

Places: New Zealand, Australia

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