Tax Cuts

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Tax Cuts

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#1790343 27-May-2017 18:27

I don't dispute the need to work with a limited pot. My problem is with the fact that the spending from the pot (of which people like me contribute a hell of a lot more to than most average Kiwis) is overwhelmingly slanted towards causes popular with the nasty, socially conservative folks who tend to vote in great numbers (using their demographic advantage) to screw the next generation and beyond. This is how many years in a row where this government has frozen ECE funding? It's a joke.

mattwnz

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#1790373 27-May-2017 18:47

JimmyH:

It's the job of government to strike a balance. I don't think the budget did a stupid job of this - they had some spare cash, and out of that funded health and education to manage pressure, and gave some back to taxpayers who had been seeing rising effective tax rates because of fiscal drag. Personally, I would rather have seen them spend less, and have bigger tax cuts and faster debt repayment instead. But the balance they settled on wasn't, on the face of it, silly.

I have taken a drop in income over the last few years, and my budget is a bit stretched. So I'm not upset about being able to hold on to a little bit more of the money that I work to earn. I just wish it was a bit more.

However are they increasing the funding for these things enough to even match the huge increase in people immigrating to NZ. Are people getting as much taxpayer health care these days, or are people now expected to pay privately, or use insurance for many more elective operations?

One problem we do have, is that we don't have a strong opposition party anymore in NZ. So we don't seem to be getting as much research and critiquing from the opposition, to question the government. Instead they seem to be more into pushing their own policies. This is needed for a strong democracy.

shk292

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#1790740 28-May-2017 18:14

dejadeadnz:

I don't dispute the need to work with a limited pot. My problem is with the fact that the spending from the pot (of which people like me contribute a hell of a lot more to than most average Kiwis) is overwhelmingly slanted towards causes popular with the nasty, socially conservative folks who tend to vote in great numbers (using their demographic advantage) to screw the next generation and beyond. This is how many years in a row where this government has frozen ECE funding? It's a joke.

From: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/expenditure

The three largest areas of total Crown expenditure for the 2015/16 financial year were:

Social security and welfare: $28.9 billion
Health: $15.2 billion
Education: $13.8 billion

So, although the spending of the "spare" pot (which is what I assume you meant above, not the whole budget) may go towards "nasty", non-socialist causes, a high proportion of the govt budget goes to "nice" causes.

As far as I can remember, this government didn't get elected on a socialist ticket, so one could argue that they are doing what they were elected to do. It may be inconvenient that the majority of voters are "nasty", and you could argue I suppose that only those with liberal arts degrees should get a vote - but I think our system is broadly delivering what the electorate wants.

Wiggum

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#1790743 28-May-2017 18:19

shk292:

The three largest areas of total Crown expenditure for the 2015/16 financial year were:

Social security and welfare: $28.9 billion
Health: $15.2 billion
Education: $13.8 billion

Why do they always combine those two? Any ideas what we spend on welfare alone?

blackjack17

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#1790781 28-May-2017 19:08

Wiggum:

shk292:

The three largest areas of total Crown expenditure for the 2015/16 financial year were:

Social security and welfare: $28.9 billion
Health: $15.2 billion
Education: $13.8 billion

Why do they always combine those two? Any ideas what we spend on welfare alone?

From stuff

In 2013/14 we spent $10.9 billion on superannuation payments.

By comparison, we spent $4.3 billion on other core benefits - comprising $1.7 billion in Jobseeker Support and emergency benefits; $1.2 billion in sole parent support; and $1.4 billion in supported living payments.

Budget 2015/16 provides $12.2 billion for New Zealand Superannuation payments - an increase of 12 percent from two years earlier.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/69348442/new-zealand-superannuation-the-facts-and-the-fiction

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mattwnz

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#1790785 28-May-2017 19:21

blackjack17:
Wiggum:

shk292:

The three largest areas of total Crown expenditure for the 2015/16 financial year were:

Social security and welfare: $28.9 billion

Health: $15.2 billion

Education: $13.8 billion

Why do they always combine those two? Any ideas what we spend on welfare alone?

From stuff

In 2013/14 we spent $10.9 billion on superannuation payments.

By comparison, we spent $4.3 billion on other core benefits - comprising $1.7 billion in Jobseeker Support and emergency benefits; $1.2 billion in sole parent support; and $1.4 billion in supported living payments.

Budget 2015/16 provides $12.2 billion for New Zealand Superannuation payments - an increase of 12 percent from two years earlier.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/69348442/new-zealand-superannuation-the-facts-and-the-fiction

It implies super is a benefit, where it is actually an entitlement.

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Batman

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#1790793 28-May-2017 20:01

Fundamentally, the issue is not fake news of tax cuts. There is no tax cut. Just a shift in the tax brackets!

Fundamentally, without actual tax cuts and with actual tax credit elimination the govt has just screwed you all!

Fundamentally, policitians and CEOs and Directors get pay rises every year in line with inflation while the rest of the population's pay are stunted due to fake reasons.

Fundamentally, that's what's wrong.

shk292

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#1790796 28-May-2017 20:23

joker97:

Fundamentally, the issue is not fake news of tax cuts. There is no tax cut. Just a shift in the tax brackets!

Depends how you define "tax cut". A reasonable definition would be "a cut in the tax paid", which is what we have here

joker97:

Fundamentally, without actual tax cuts and with actual tax credit elimination the govt has just screwed you all!

See above - there are tax cuts. Most people are better off. If that in your mind means you've been screwed, then yes, you're fundamentally right.

joker97:

Fundamentally, policitians and CEOs and Directors get pay rises every year in line with inflation while the rest of the population's pay are stunted due to fake reasons.

Fundamentally, that's what's wrong.

Fundamentally, the average income in NZ has grown year by year. Most people get a pay rise. YMMV. Maybe you're not worth one?

dejadeadnz

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#1790797 28-May-2017 20:23

mattwnz: It implies super is a benefit, where it is actually an entitlement.

A pointless and arbitrary distinction that serves no purpose, other than somehow providing some perceived (but ultimately unjustifiable) justification for the grey power and baby boomer ripoff of the rest of the taxpayers and the disproportionate diversion of resources away from other sectors of society that also have needs, e.g children. We live in a parliamentary democracy where parliament's word is supreme. In the absence of any constitutional guarantee saying this is an entitlement (for it to be an entitlement in the truest sense of the word, people would be morally or externally obliged beyond something as contingent as a law of parliament that can be changed any time) to give this to the oldies. We are not.

The fact that superannuation continues to be misstated as an entitlement by politicians looking for the baby boomer and oldie votes, aided and abetted by the misinformed, is one of the worst manifestations of poke barrel politics at the expense of the next generation.

JimmyH

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#1790798 28-May-2017 20:24

joker97:

Fundamentally, policitians and CEOs and Directors get pay rises every year in line with inflation while the rest of the population's pay are stunted due to fake reasons.

What?

blackjack17

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#1790807 28-May-2017 20:45

mattwnz:
blackjack17:

Wiggum:

shk292:

The three largest areas of total Crown expenditure for the 2015/16 financial year were:

Social security and welfare: $28.9 billion

Health: $15.2 billion

Education: $13.8 billion

Why do they always combine those two? Any ideas what we spend on welfare alone?

From stuff

In 2013/14 we spent $10.9 billion on superannuation payments.

By comparison, we spent $4.3 billion on other core benefits - comprising $1.7 billion in Jobseeker Support and emergency benefits; $1.2 billion in sole parent support; and $1.4 billion in supported living payments.

Budget 2015/16 provides $12.2 billion for New Zealand Superannuation payments - an increase of 12 percent from two years earlier.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/69348442/new-zealand-superannuation-the-facts-and-the-fiction

It implies super is a benefit, where it is actually an entitlement.

Aren't they all entitlements? Super hasn't been paid for, it is being paid for by the current generation of workers.

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#1790808 28-May-2017 20:46

shk292:

Fundamentally, the average income in NZ has grown year by year. Most people get a pay rise. YMMV. Maybe you're not worth one?

Maybe.

Fred99

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#1790849 28-May-2017 23:18

dejadeadnz:
mattwnz: It implies super is a benefit, where it is actually an entitlement.

A pointless and arbitrary distinction that serves no purpose, other than somehow providing some perceived (but ultimately unjustifiable) justification for the grey power and baby boomer ripoff of the rest of the taxpayers and the disproportionate diversion of resources away from other sectors of society that also have needs, e.g children. We live in a parliamentary democracy where parliament's word is supreme. In the absence of any constitutional guarantee saying this is an entitlement (for it to be an entitlement in the truest sense of the word, people would be morally or externally obliged beyond something as contingent as a law of parliament that can be changed any time) to give this to the oldies. We are not.

The fact that superannuation continues to be misstated as an entitlement by politicians looking for the baby boomer and oldie votes, aided and abetted by the misinformed, is one of the worst manifestations of poke barrel politics at the expense of the next generation.

Personally, before making any such claim, I'd like to see some figures based on saving if means testing was applied, including reduction in that potential saving as well as accrued losses from the people who'd be above thresholds but would take additional steps to what they already do to minimise assets and income. For good measure, throw in the cost to administer means testing - for everybody who lives long enough.

I think I see what's going on here - you're simultaneously blaming present superannuitants for policy decided +20 years ago - and wanting them to make a sacrifice for future generations. That's not "fair" either.

dejadeadnz

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#1790851 28-May-2017 23:46

What I want is simple -- I want politicians to actually take some account of people who cannot as yet vote, rather than treating them as non-entities. There are all kinds of ways to do this and does not have to be a zero sums game. At the moment, politicians are committing nothing but an intellectual fraud by claiming that conceptually a bunch of oldies somehow have an entitlement to what are benefits that other people pay for, when no such claim is ever countenanced for any other generation. If these oldies have an entitlement/right to something in the absolute sense of the word, as Winston the Moron and some on here also believe, then my challenge to you is to show me the Hohfeldian logic as to where the duty of all of us to keep suffering this at all costs arises from.

Our politicians' desire to continue to perpetuting this myth is nothing but simple vote buying and age-based discrimination. As for people who support this when they aren't the beneficiaries? I guess what Lenin had to say about useful idiots come to mind. The most delicious irony is that the fools who keep supporting this don't realise that they are perpetuating a sinking ship -- the next generation that have the means and are able to contribute the most also tend to have the most options.

Fred99

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#1790855 29-May-2017 00:12

Well that's kind of expecting politician of any flavour to think in timescales beyond election cycles.

It's actually why China might eat our lunch despite (or because of) lack of democracy. If you forgive some contentious human rights issues, they're as close to benevolent dictatorship as any large nation has ever been. And they have plans, the 5 year plan, then 10, 50 and 100 year plan.

If I have an issue with "welfare", it's mainly in that most right-wing zealots equate it with "charity" and suggest that as such, then charity could replace it.

I don't buy that position, true "charity" comes without condition or judgment, as with conditions (you have to get clean, do this, get a job, do that... or else) it's actually not "charity" at all, but forcing people to do what you want them to do - so in fact it's closer to "slavery", there's nothing altruistic going on there, you're only giving in return for something.

I've never received a benefit, god willing never will.

I suspect the future may necessitate UBI. If that happens for the coming generations, I sure do hope that the system doesn't treat them all like beggars, bludgers, and losers.

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