Since coming into office, National has been keen to emphasise its "tough on crime" credentials, cracking down on civil liberties, eroding fair trials, and increasing punishments. But there's one type of crime it isn't keen on cracking down on: tax evasion. Since coming into office, there has been no correspondence between the Minister and his department on dealing with the staggering levels of tax fraud by the rich reported by the Tax Working Group. Instead, they have cut over a hundred jobs from IRD's Assurance & Litigation unit, the people whose job it is to chase down that fraud. Meanwhile, the number of small business audits has shrunk dramatically from 44,484 to 12,707.
The reason for this is obvious: this tax evasion is done by the rich. And the last thing National wants to do is upset its mates. Instead, it wants to reward them with a whopping tax cut.
Its so very, very National, isn't it?
