Fuel Taxes are Regressive Devices
They Hurt the Working Poor
Daniel Newman
Stuff
If Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants to uncover the root cause of motorist's pain at the pump, she need only look in the mirror. Labour has directed that the price of petrol and diesel is to rise by 3.5 cents a litre every year. On top of that, the Labour fuel tax hit Auckland motorists by an extra 11.5 cents (including GST) a litre on July 1.
This is precisely the reason why my Labour colleague Councillor Efeso Collins courageously voted against the Auckland-version of his own party's fuel tax agenda. Speaking during that debate, Collins stated the obvious: "These taxes hit the poorest the most."
Therein lies the problem for this government: Labour planned it that way.
Around $1.25 per litre is taken in excise taxes and GST. That money is taken by a government that needs a massive infusion of Crown revenue through both direct and indirect taxation to fund its budget programme.
Many of us have admired the Prime Minister's statesmanlike performance on the international stage. But charming technocrats at the United Nations in New York is no substitute for dealing with the plight of the working poor in suburban South Auckland; the very people who helped elect this government are now bleeding through their skinny wallets.
These are arguments that a minority of us made earlier this year. The response? Ministers and their coterie of vested interests (starting with Auckland Mayor Phil Goff) chided us for being knockers and nay-sayers.
Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Friday, 19 October 2018
Monday, 4 September 2017
When It Comes to Capital Gains, Anything Goes
Labour Leader Exposes Her Flank
We are rapidly coming to the view that New Zealand's Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern is a sandwich-short-of-picnic. She has exposed herself and her Party to the risk of a merciless and overwhelming attack that will destroy Labour's election chances. It remains to be seen whether the attack will be mounted and successfully executed. We suspect it's something the Establishment does not want to see happen. The media would be devastated by their poster-girl falling exhausted from death by a thousand self-inflicted cuts. But it is her own fault. She--and by all accounts, she alone--has placed Labour in this acutely vulnerable position.
The issue is tax. We all know that the Labour Party is the tax-and-spend party. It is part of its genetic makeup, evident for decades. Ardern, political neophyte, wants to walk in that tradition. She wants to tax, and she wants to spend. It's the only way to achieve the grand Millennial vision of the Left. Since Labour party politicians are not demi-gods and cannot work miracles, the only way they can make progress is by spending the people's money which must first be stripped off them via tax. For some explicable reason the average voting joe isn't enthusiastic.
To avoid making voters mad, she has been oh-so-clever. She has introduced the "possibility" of a capital gains tax after the election. But she knows that actually to put a percentage rate on the tax risks electoral suicide. As soon as the capital gains tax rate is specified, voters are going to calculate the cost to them--and that's when they turn very quickly into anti-tax voters. So, she has endeavoured to speak grandly and presidentially of setting up a working group to make recommendations as to what will be taxed and how much; only then (on the presumed basis of reasoned and researched wisdom) will she reveal to the voters how much they are going to get stripped away from them. In the meantime she is "not ruling anything out".
This exposes Ardern to enormous electoral damage, if the Establishment has the professionalism to follow it through. Think of Ardern having lifted her arms, turned side on, and inviting anyone who wishes to take up the dagger and deliver the coup d'grace.
Why is this such a major tactical blunder?
We are rapidly coming to the view that New Zealand's Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern is a sandwich-short-of-picnic. She has exposed herself and her Party to the risk of a merciless and overwhelming attack that will destroy Labour's election chances. It remains to be seen whether the attack will be mounted and successfully executed. We suspect it's something the Establishment does not want to see happen. The media would be devastated by their poster-girl falling exhausted from death by a thousand self-inflicted cuts. But it is her own fault. She--and by all accounts, she alone--has placed Labour in this acutely vulnerable position.
The issue is tax. We all know that the Labour Party is the tax-and-spend party. It is part of its genetic makeup, evident for decades. Ardern, political neophyte, wants to walk in that tradition. She wants to tax, and she wants to spend. It's the only way to achieve the grand Millennial vision of the Left. Since Labour party politicians are not demi-gods and cannot work miracles, the only way they can make progress is by spending the people's money which must first be stripped off them via tax. For some explicable reason the average voting joe isn't enthusiastic.
To avoid making voters mad, she has been oh-so-clever. She has introduced the "possibility" of a capital gains tax after the election. But she knows that actually to put a percentage rate on the tax risks electoral suicide. As soon as the capital gains tax rate is specified, voters are going to calculate the cost to them--and that's when they turn very quickly into anti-tax voters. So, she has endeavoured to speak grandly and presidentially of setting up a working group to make recommendations as to what will be taxed and how much; only then (on the presumed basis of reasoned and researched wisdom) will she reveal to the voters how much they are going to get stripped away from them. In the meantime she is "not ruling anything out".
This exposes Ardern to enormous electoral damage, if the Establishment has the professionalism to follow it through. Think of Ardern having lifted her arms, turned side on, and inviting anyone who wishes to take up the dagger and deliver the coup d'grace.
Why is this such a major tactical blunder?
Monday, 22 August 2016
The Fruits of Believing The State is as God
No Surprises There
We have oft stated in this blog that statism is the prevailing religion throughout the West. Each and every problem can be solved by the State--acting, reacting, ruling, punishing, pushing, directing, funding, defunding, taxing--always taxing. Mark Twain was right: there are only two certain things in a statist world: death and taxes.
One prosaic example will suffice. New Zealander's diets are pretty bad in some quarters. We are now learning that, contrary to decades of bad science and advice, the real dietary problem is sugar, not fat. We are facing an obesity epidemic that has a long road of multiplying diseases that will play out over generations. For example, in New Zealand we are now seeing young children develop Type II diabetes--which is entirely diet caused. This is not a hereditary condition, but a result of the amount of sugar the children ingest as part of their daily diet. The list of ailments and diseases which flow from having diabetes is as long as can be imagined, with more coming to light as the epidemic worsens. But, let's repeat. This is an epidemic plague that is inextricably lifestyle related.
What has been our response?
We have oft stated in this blog that statism is the prevailing religion throughout the West. Each and every problem can be solved by the State--acting, reacting, ruling, punishing, pushing, directing, funding, defunding, taxing--always taxing. Mark Twain was right: there are only two certain things in a statist world: death and taxes.
One prosaic example will suffice. New Zealander's diets are pretty bad in some quarters. We are now learning that, contrary to decades of bad science and advice, the real dietary problem is sugar, not fat. We are facing an obesity epidemic that has a long road of multiplying diseases that will play out over generations. For example, in New Zealand we are now seeing young children develop Type II diabetes--which is entirely diet caused. This is not a hereditary condition, but a result of the amount of sugar the children ingest as part of their daily diet. The list of ailments and diseases which flow from having diabetes is as long as can be imagined, with more coming to light as the epidemic worsens. But, let's repeat. This is an epidemic plague that is inextricably lifestyle related.
What has been our response?
Wednesday, 14 October 2015
Some Qualifications to Margaret Thatcher's Bon Mot
Bounds, Limitations, Rights and Fundamental Truths
The NZ Taxpayers' Union has a "Quote of the Week" usually reproduced in Kiwiblog. This week's is a doozy which cuts through smoke and mirrors, the lies and deceit, and rams home a fundamental truth:
First, the original and absolute owner of all money, wealth, property, goods, and kind is the Almighty God, "infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." The earth is His, and all that it contains. That's the first fundamental qualification to Thatcher's dictum.
The NZ Taxpayers' Union has a "Quote of the Week" usually reproduced in Kiwiblog. This week's is a doozy which cuts through smoke and mirrors, the lies and deceit, and rams home a fundamental truth:
However, a qualification is required. A Christian qualification. Well, actually two qualifications. Upon these two qualifications hang the Christian doctrine of the State--and, therefore, by extenuation, the doctrines of justice and freedom.“Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more is can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.”– Margaret Thatcher
First, the original and absolute owner of all money, wealth, property, goods, and kind is the Almighty God, "infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." The earth is His, and all that it contains. That's the first fundamental qualification to Thatcher's dictum.
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Revenue Problems
It's a Strange, Strange World
Imagine for a minute a bizarre parallel universe in which institutions of government were so perverse they refused to do things on the grounds they did not have sufficient funds. Free libraries for citizens? Yeah, that would be wonderful, but--Nah, we can't afford it. Next. Clearly such behaviour would indicate derangement by all concerned.
Consequently, in our more sane world, local government has never let a lack of money stand in the way of new spending projects. That's what all government exist for, right? To spend more of other peoples' money. It was completely predictable, therefore, that as the pressure group, Local Government New Zealand (representing local and municipal governments in New Zealand) recently faced up to the unexpected crisis of no-money-left, it would come up with an equally unexpected solution. More money, please. They have thought long and hard about how local governments can extract more money out of the citizens to pay for all the big-spending, wonderful ideas and plans local governments are so adept at creating.
Local government has a revenue problem, not a spending problem--or so we are told. Ratepayers (that is, property owners) have reached the limits of their ability to pay more. There are murmurings of rates revolts. So now, local councils want new ways to tax and extract money citizens' money.
Imagine for a minute a bizarre parallel universe in which institutions of government were so perverse they refused to do things on the grounds they did not have sufficient funds. Free libraries for citizens? Yeah, that would be wonderful, but--Nah, we can't afford it. Next. Clearly such behaviour would indicate derangement by all concerned.
Consequently, in our more sane world, local government has never let a lack of money stand in the way of new spending projects. That's what all government exist for, right? To spend more of other peoples' money. It was completely predictable, therefore, that as the pressure group, Local Government New Zealand (representing local and municipal governments in New Zealand) recently faced up to the unexpected crisis of no-money-left, it would come up with an equally unexpected solution. More money, please. They have thought long and hard about how local governments can extract more money out of the citizens to pay for all the big-spending, wonderful ideas and plans local governments are so adept at creating.
Local government has a revenue problem, not a spending problem--or so we are told. Ratepayers (that is, property owners) have reached the limits of their ability to pay more. There are murmurings of rates revolts. So now, local councils want new ways to tax and extract money citizens' money.
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