The rich aren't paying their fair share

Back in 2020, IRD began a hugely controversial (among rich people) study of how much tax the rich are actually paying. And today it reported back its completely unsurprising finding: The rich aren't paying their fair share:

An Inland Revenue investigation has found New Zealand's wealthiest families pay less than half the amount of tax, across all forms of income, than most other New Zealanders.

A 2020 law change gave IRD new powers to require the wealthiest families to provide their earnings information. After a two-year investigation, the High Wealth Individuals Research Projects found untaxed capital gains from businesses, property and other investments skew the tax system in favour of the country's most wealthy.

[...]

The project gathered information from 311 families, who generally have a net worth of more than $50 million, looking at the period from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2021.

Once ownership of businesses, properties and other investments were taken into account, alongside wages and salaries, their median effective tax rate is 9.4 per cent, compared with 20.2 per cent for other "middle wealth New Zealanders". Both figures include payments like benefits and superannuation, as well as GST paid.

Yes, that's right: the rich are paying at half the rate of us dirty peasants. Which kindof explains how they're rich: by thieving from the rest of us.

There's an obvious solution to fix this: tax land, wealth, and capital gains. It would be fair and popular. So obviously, Labour will do everything it possibly can to avoid doing it.