It seems that someone was listening to yesterday's post. From todays Questions for Oral Answer:
RAHUI KATENE to the Minister of Revenue: Is it true some of our biggest companies are paying a lower tax rate than the average pensioner; and if so, how can private company tax which enables companies to benefit from huge tax breaks be considered morally fair or acceptable?And that's the key question: not whether it is legal, but whether it is fair. While tax accountants can come up with all sorts of legal scams to shuffle money around to hide it from the IRD, if they do so, they are evading their social responsibility. And ordinary people, who pay their taxes automatically with their wages through PAYE and recognise that those taxes mean schools for their kids, hospitals when they're sick, a social safety net when the bankers fuck the economy and throw them out of work, and a pension in their old age, can recognise the blatant unfairness on display here. If companies are using these scams, then they are not paying their fair share - and stealing from all of us in the process.
