Maybe they just can't provide the roads that Aucklanders seem to want.
I don't live there so no problem for me.
Printable View
Yeah, Aucklanders want roads and they get a redeveloped ferry terminal instead. Fullers will be happy.
Time to knock the ‘regional fuel tax’ on the head.
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‘Big winners include the Eastern Busway which has spent $246m over the period, road safety improvements which spent $239.2m, and the Downtown Ferry Terminal redevelopment, which spent $136m.’
Just earlier this evening on ZB Drivetime, huge fish hooks discovered with the revenue National counting on from the 15% tax on foreign buyers of NZ homes over $2million, towards funding the $14.6 Billion tax cuts.
Up until the Labour govt brought in the foreign buyer ban on existing homes, buyers form China accounted for 37%, Australia 19% & I think it was Singapore 3% of all foreign purchases.
Due to existing & new trade agreements, buyers from all those countries are excluded from the tax, - so that's 60% of foreign buyers are automatically excluded from paying the 15% tax, & National want to open the door to them plus reduce the Brightline test from 10 years to 2.
There's a massive mistake in the forecast revenue, fine if you're Luxon owning 7 houses or Willis owning 4 houses, but what about Kiwi first home buyers who were really coming back into the market, they will be stuffed!
First home buyers cannot possibly be more stuffed than with what this clueless Labour government under Hipkins, Ardern & Robertson have done to them :
1. Record high prices for properties,
2. Bought at artificially record low interest rates,
3. Government making the housing problem into a disaster,
4. Government competing in the property market to buy homes and driving up prices even higher (refer 1).
Now all the chickens are coming home to roost with many of the first home buyers in negative equity situation while having to pay ever higher mortgage rates & interest.
So Blue Skies, spare us your Ardern BS & spin & scare mongering. Spare us your hypocrisy & crocodile tears of pretending to care for first home buyers when the facts are to the contrary.
NZers know exactly what this Labour government has done to them - nothing positive and everything negative.
If i'm not mistaken, when Jacinda imposed the foreign buyers ban, how was she able to ban Chinese buyers from parking their laundered money in NZ houses? She did it by a stroke of pen and if you consider from China's point of view, they would welcome more of this kind of restriction as China has currency controls and prefers it's citizens to not engage in an exodus of wealth manner.
I feel Luxton could have gone harder with a tax on non-resident buyers. Recently Trudeau has imposed a 1% annual stamp duty tax on all non-residents owning residential properties in Canada. I'm also not surprised in NZ being not familiar of imposing the 15% sales tax but if Canada can do it, why can't NZ? Canada has many tax treaties with the US and China and has no issues imposing their own tax laws. Remember, it's only an issue if it disadvantages the other country and if you look at China, well I can't see how they would disagree. Oh BTW, can foreign nationals buy houses in China? Nope.
Balance don't you get it?
When Nicolla Willis says the Labour Govt has spent all the money, how come they are at the same time offering an eye watering $14.6 Billion in tax cuts!
No prudent economic manager would do this, its wilful blindness to ignore the contradiction.
Further to this, a growing number of independent Tax & Trade experts (not the Labour govt) are saying around 60% of foreign buyers will be exempt from the Foreign Buyers Tax & there's nothing the govt will be able to do about it, its enshrined in International Law due to the deals we've signed & we're hardly going to put at risk around 1/3rd of our export market by breaking parts of existing Agreements.
Plus an independent chorus of experts (again not the labour govt) including NZ Internet Vivien Maidaborn Chief are saying the funding National is depending on from overseas Gambling operators to help fund this $14.6 Billion is not going to work either, its too easy for people to get around Geo blocking & overseas gambling operators are not going to comply with any new regulations when they don't have to.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pol...down-wont-work
If the economy is such bad shape as they say, you don't give away a $14.6 Billion tax cut & you don't pretend its not inflationary either.
They will never find $14.6 Billion without borrowing or increasing GST & it's irresponsible to pretend they can.
Labour's targeted $3.6 Billion in savings & reducing the debt while supporting those at the bottom is far more realistic & responsible.
Not to be outdone there's the kiwisaver withdrawal plan to pay rent or "bonds" (Logen will tell us how he prefers a term associated with slavery) to one of these landlords.
I like Matthew Hooton I thought he might be right leaning considering his past but he sums National's tax policy up well in the herald this morning.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...FSJA6LVJ6DOWU/
National faces probably the most incompetent Government in New Zealand’s history. Our trade, fiscal and general economic outlook is the worst since the 1984 and 1990 financial and political crises.
Jacinda Ardern quit rather than face the electoral consequences of her Government’s failure to deliver its key promises and the hubristic excesses of its Covid response.
The current account deficit for the March 2023 year - after Covid was behind us - widened to $33 billion, 8.5 per cent of GDP, up from $24b or 6.8 per cent of GDP the previous year. That’s the worst ever recorded.
In the last decade we have dropped another six places on the OECD’s productivity league tables. We now have among the worst productivity in the developed world, according to the Government’s own Productivity Commission.
In 2024, the IMF says New Zealand will be the worst-performing economy in the entire world in terms of GDP growth, except for Equatorial Guinea, a small African dictatorship on the brink of economic and social collapse.
Grant Robertson’s profligacy has made public debt material again and his fiscal deficit already appears structural.
Debt servicing is again becoming a major area of government expenditure, as it was before Ruth Richardson, Bill Birch and Michael Cullen repaid Robert Muldoon’s, Roger Douglas’ and David Caygill’s reckless borrowing.
Serious people know there are no circumstances in which tax cuts or increased handouts could be justified in the short or medium term.
Here is what some Kiwis are thinking.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/polit...ax-policy.html
"Its not enough I need more". That is what politicians have to pander to.
The bludger mentality whether it is someone too lazy to work wanting more benefit or a wealthy asset owner fighting capital gains tax, someone earning $100k or more with their hand out for national super, your average Kiwi seems to be only thinking what they can get back from everyone else's tax or ways to contribute less to the pot.