Friday, May 10, 2019



Why do MPs hate capital gains taxes?

Just look at all the houses they own.

Parliament's Register of Pecuniary Interests was released yesterday, showing all the pies our MPs said they have their fingers in. And their favourite pie is houses. NewsHub has a list here, and I've turned it into a spreadsheet classifying properties by type. All up, our MPs own 220 houses - almost two each - and only 8 of them do not own a house. By party, National has 125 houses (2.23 per MP), Labour 71 (1.54 / MP), NZ First 17 (1.89 / MP), Jamie Lee-Ross 1, and the Greens 6 (0.75 / MP). Interestingly, ACT leader and MP David Seymour doesn't own a house.

Collectively, our MPs are house-hoarders, part of the problem. Shane Jones owns five houses. And he's not alone on that level. Some of our MPs are slumlords. And that's not considering land, farms, or other commercial property, which adds to the tally.

And this is why MP's hate the idea of a capital gains tax: because they'd be the ones paying it.