Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Michael Cullen can't be trusted

A report in today's DomPost  details Michael Cullen's thinking as he embarks on his chairmanship of the Tax Working Group. The title alone, Cullen: Taxes could change bad behaviours is enough to send a shiver down your spine. But so should this:
Cullen said taxes were normally higher in richer countries than in poorer ones and said New Zealand's tax system did less, compared to most in the OECD, to redistribute money from the rich to the poor.
Really?

According to latest OECD data (published 2017) NZ has the highest percentage cash transfer to the lowest quintile:





And NZ rates above the OECD average in how much of its GDP is turned into public social spending to the working-age population:



New Zealand doesn't do so much universalism but it certainly rates right up there when it comes to redistributing money "from the rich to the poor".

A very dodgy start from Cullen.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nine years on a pension might just have seen him become irrelevant yet he rises again. Maybe this is a consequence of politicians looking after their mates from the supposed opposite side of politics. I wish the left and right (or conservative and progressives) really hated each other's politics and guts at a personal level - life would be so much easier without trying to second guess every dodgy deal done.

3:16

Anonymous said...

And how many votes did the red-carded Cullen receive at the last election?
That's the part that scares me. Not one vote, but gets to inform govt anyway!!

Allan said...

Cullen has a very short memory. GST was sold to us as an easy, fair and equitable way of collecting tax and would make the NZ tax regime easy to understand and manage. To offset the introduction of GST PAYE rates were lowered and other taxes such as death duties were removed so there was a trade off between the citizens and Government. Now, because these Socialist idiots seem to think that the hard working citizens are there just to be used as cash flow machines, he is trying to find ways to extort more tax and renegue on the promises made by David Lange's Government of fewer taxes in return for the introduction of GST. Cullen is not be trusted one iota. My contempt for the man knows no bounds. He should be put out to pasture and forgotten about. He is an irrelevant little man with a huge chip on his shoulder.

Anonymous said...

He has no mandate to do anything, and frankly, nor does Labour. Crikey, the arrogance is breathtaking. I feel like it's the ghost of Clark's govt come back to haunt us...Ardern is out of her depth, does tons of photo shoots and fluffies, but there is no substance, no policy, no depth. Is she just the front gal whilst Clark and Cullen etc pull the strings? National look like the true govt every single day!! Cullen and his tax group send a shiver down my spine. One term govt??

DS said...

NZ Herald recently published a list of the top 10 happiest nations.
The top ten happiest nations
1. Finland
2. Norway
3. Denmark
4. Iceland
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. New Zealand
9. Sweden
10. Australia

You may notice they are mostly at the top of the cash transfer to the lowest quintile.

You lot are so worried that you may give a little more than you recieve. There are lots of other countries where you pay little tax. I'm sure we won't miss you.