Tax the rich!

We already know that the rich people aren't paying their fair share. But it turns out its worse than that: we're a tax-haven! Our rich people pay lower taxes here than in any comparable country:

Well-off New Zealanders are paying less tax than their peers in nine similar OECD nations, new research shows.

New Zealand had the lowest income tax rate, did not systematically tax capital gains, and did not have any other types of wealth taxes, the Victoria University study commissioned by Tax Justice Aotearoa found.

[...]

Using 2023 OECD data it found someone on a $330,000 income that was wholly taxed as a conventional salary, would pay income tax of $108,000, or 33 percent. This was the lowest income tax rate of all the comparable nations, which had rates ranging from 37 percent to 55 percent, said Victoria University senior research associate Max Rashbrooke, who carried out the analysis.

New Zealand and Belgium were the only two nations that did not have a capital gains tax, though Belgium had other wealth taxes, which New Zealand did not.

Which should put paid to the constant threats from the rich and their collaborators to leave if we raise taxes. Go ahead! Fuck off, if you want to pay higher taxes elsewhere. We'll be glad to see the back of these social scabs.

As for why this matters: our schools and hospitals are falling apart, our infrastructure is rotting, and we have homeless people living on the streets. Our government can't do the things we need it to, because it refuses to raise the revenue it needs to do them. Which makes sense from National - they work for rich people, and they want government to be broken and useless. As for Labour, they just are broken and useless - if not working for the same people National is. But if they want to regain power, they need to address this problem. Because if they don't, we can and will vote for a party which will.