What each party wants to do with your taxes

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1. 0:06Speaker 1: Kia ora, I'm Chelsea Daniels, and this is The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
2. 0:16Speaker 2: With the election just.
3. 0:17Speaker 1: Weeks away, a new poll gives us a glimpse into how voters feel about one of the major topics this campaign season, tax. No new taxes for working people. No
4. 0:28Speaker 1: new taxes full stop. Taxes for capital gains. Tax the rich.
5. 0:33Speaker 1: Tax inheritance. Tax landowners. The campaign season's only just officially begun, but it feels like we've already been hearing debates about the subject of taxes and levies for a while now.
6. 0:44Speaker 1: The latest Ipsos Issues Monitor survey dove deeper into the tax debate, showing about two-thirds of Kiwis would support a wealth tax. Today on the front page, Newstalk ZB political
7. 0:55Speaker 1: reporter Ethan Griffiths is with us to break down the numbers. So, Ethan, what is this latest Ipsos survey telling us about what
8. 1:07Speaker 1: voters are really worried about heading into this election?
9. 1:10Speaker 3: Well, above anything else, it is inflation and the cost of living. And that's exactly the same as the last election.
10. 1:16Speaker 3: A thousand voters were polled within this Ipsos survey and were asked for their top three issues. For 63% of them,
11. 1:24Speaker 3: their top issue, full stop, was inflation and the cost of living.
12. 1:29Speaker 2: And linked to that, of.
13. 1:30Speaker 3: Course, is other economic issues too. The economy was the third biggest issue. 34% of voters were concerned about the economy.
14. 1:38Speaker 3: Unemployment was fourth at 21%. So I guess it's the case for pretty much every election, but it seems particularly pronounced that once again, this election is going to be heavily focused on the economy.
15. 1:50Speaker 4: What was second?
16. 1:51Speaker 2: Second was health.
17. 1:52Speaker 3: So health looks to be a major issue as well.
18. 1:55Speaker 3: So that's the second biggest issue.
19. 1:56Speaker 2: 44% are concerned.
20. 1:59Speaker 3: About health, and that is up six points on July, where it was at 38%. So there's quite a bit of movement there in real time, which suggests that health is also going to be a battleground issue.
21. 2:09Speaker 1: Well, given, I mean, much of the top issues do involve money, what does that tell us about the kind of election campaign we should be seeing over the next few weeks?
22. 2:18Speaker 3: Suspect that the election campaign is going to be heavily rooted in chat about the economy.
23. 2:23Speaker 2: And to be fair, as I said before, that is the case for most elections.
24. 2:26Speaker 3: I mean, that is the thing that affects people's.
25. 2:28Speaker 2: Lives the most.
26. 2:29Speaker 3: How much money they're bringing home, how much they can spend, whether they have a job, what the housing market looks like, all of that is tied into the economy. Frankly, since the inflation spike that we saw under the previous government,
27. 2:41Speaker 3: you know, the economy has been more pronounced for a lot of people.
28. 2:44Speaker 2: There's been very little movement in terms.
29. 2:46Speaker 3: Of wage growth compared to inflation in the last sort of six years. Life hasn't materially improved for a lot of people. For some people it has, for a lot of people it hasn't. Throw in a fuel crisis where
30. 2:57Speaker 3: everyone's now paying $ 3 a litre for fuel, then it makes it quite a pertinent issue. Those on the right, of course, would blame Labour for the spending and the borrowing that happened during their last term here.
31. 3:09Speaker 2: And government.
32. 3:09Speaker 3: But those on the left, and in fact, some people on the right would say, look, National promised the world at the last election. Of course, they're not going to achieve everything within three years. But you look at it
33. 3:20Speaker 3: at the moment and think, gosh, there hasn't been terribly much movement from where we were three years ago.
34. 3:26Speaker 1: Yeah, looking at that survey, Labour is still the party that voters perceive as the best able to handle the economy.
35. 3:33Speaker 1: But it's actually a its lead over national over the last few of those surveys, those monitor surveys, has slipped.
36. 3:40Speaker 2: Why do you think that might be?
37. 3:41Speaker 3: Quite a significant shift there in terms of voters trusting Labour.
38. 3:45Speaker 3: I mean, like every poll, right, you take this with quite a significant grain of salt. You know, with polls, you're looking at trends rather than each individual poll. But this one does show that of the top five issues,
39. 3:55Speaker 3: as the previous one did, Labour is seen as the most competent party to deal with all of those top five issues. In fact, Of the top 12 issues, I think they're leading in about 10 of them. That's a
40. 4:06Speaker 3: win for Labour, no doubt. They will be very happy with that. But it is by no means a commanding lead.
41. 4:12Speaker 3: As you say, Labour is slipping there. One of the biggest issues, or the biggest issue, cost of living. 31% of voters there think that Labour is the most competent at handling that issue.
42. 4:22Speaker 2: It's 21% for National. So there is a 10-point gap there.
43. 4:25Speaker 3: Although you add New Zealand First and ACT to that, who are together trusted by 22% of people, the coalition as a whole has the lead on that. Of course, Labour is slipping here, though. On managing unemployment, there's a
44. 4:37Speaker 3: dive there as well. 42% of people thought they were the best party to manage unemployment three months ago. that's gone down significantly to 34%. So perhaps it matches what
45. 4:47Speaker 3: we're seeing in some of those polls generally where, you know, voters are saying who they're going to vote for.
46. 4:51Speaker 2: Those polls, you know, we see those almost every week.
47. 4:53Speaker 3: Labor has taken a dive in that and it appears that that seems to be following in this poll.
48. 4:57Speaker 1: I think the really interesting part of this survey is that deep dive into the tax debate. Only 8% of people nominate taxation itself as one of the country's biggest issues.
49. 5:08Speaker 1: So why is tax shaping up to be such an important election topic.
50. 5:13Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the fascinating thing, right? We're constantly hearing about tax, but it is not rated highly in New Zealanders' lists of concerns. And partially that might be because we are only sort of just into the campaign period now.
51. 5:25Speaker 3: Parliament only rose for the term a couple of days ago.
52. 5:28Speaker 3: We're not properly in the campaign period yet. Those campaign launches will happen this weekend. And It's true that as journalists and even people probably watching or listening to this
53. 5:38Speaker 3: podcast think about politics a lot more than the general public does, right? And of course, this is a poll of everyone, the general public, not necessarily people who are interested in politics. But we are already seeing signs that
54. 5:50Speaker 3: taxation is rising as an issue. For example, in July's poll, it was at 6%. It's now at 8%, which suggests a rise. And I mean, National are balancing their whole
55. 6:00Speaker 3: campaign on the idea of tax. They have already for a number of weeks now been going after Labour and the left or Labour and their mates, as they call it, for cooking up what they claim is nine new taxes. Labour,
56. 6:11Speaker 3: of course, is campaigning on one tax and they claim that they will not be implementing any other form of tax.
57. 6:17Speaker 3: So it's something that National is putting a lot of weight into as part of their campaign. And I guess the proof will be as the campaign heats up and how much the National Party are talking about tax, how much this rises as a concern for voters.
58. 6:29Speaker 1: What else does the survey reveal about how we feel about taxes?
59. 6:33Speaker 3: This is the thing in the entire poll that I found the most interesting, right? We talk about how only 8% of people rank tax as their top issue. Well, the poll also asked voters from every party what they thought
60. 6:45Speaker 3: about particular taxes. Now, for Labour voters, get this, 76% of them say that they want a wealth tax. By the way, that's the one that Labour is not campaigning on.
61. 6:54Speaker 3: That's the one they've ruled out. When it comes to a capital gains tax, only 56% of them want one of those. That's the one that Labour is campaigning on.
62. 7:02Speaker 3: So barely a majority of Labour's own voters even want it.
63. 7:05Speaker 3: capital gains tax. For the Nats, this is also very interesting. 47% of their voters want a wealth tax. Only 25% want
64. 7:14Speaker 3: a capital gains tax. Now, you can sort of sit here and look back and think, you know, why is that?
65. 7:20Speaker 3: Why is a wealth tax the one that's seen as as I guess, to political parties more scary than a capital gains tax.
66. 7:26Speaker 2: Why is that one more popular?
67. 7:27Speaker 3: And having to think about it, I think the obvious answer is that most voters probably don't ever see themselves being whacked with a wealth tax. Of course, the main one that's been proposed is wealth above $ 10 million, which
68. 7:39Speaker 3: is not everyone on the street, right?
69. 7:40Speaker 2: Capital gains tax is a bit different.
70. 7:42Speaker 3: A lot of people can see themselves buying an investment property, for example, and that might hit me, so I don't like that. But it is very interesting to see that there seems to be more interest from the voting population
71. 7:52Speaker 3: in a wealth tax than a capital gains tax.
72. 7:55Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of like seeing those numbers are pretty shocking, but then you've got to come to think, well, of those 1,000 people surveyed, how many of them will actually be hit with a wealth tax? You're quite right.
73. 8:06Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
74. 8:07Speaker 3: Yeah.
75. 8:14Speaker 5: So let me set the record straight for just one last time, please. Is National considering a capital gains tax?
76. 8:20Speaker 1: No.
77. 8:21Speaker 4: Are we considering a land tax on your farm?
78. 8:23Speaker 2: No.
79. 8:24Speaker 4: What about scrapping investment boosts?
80. 8:26Speaker 1: No.
81. 8:27Speaker 4: An inheritance tax?
82. 8:28Speaker 2: No.
83. 8:29Speaker 4: A new 45% top income tax?
84. 8:31Speaker 3: No.
85. 8:32Speaker 4: And what about bringing back Labour's rental tax?
86. 8:35Speaker 2: No.
87. 8:36Speaker 1: Good.
88. 8:36Speaker 5: Well, Labor and their mates are lining up nine new taxes to cover off $ 18 billion of free election freebies.
89. 8:43Speaker 4: And what's our answer?
90. 8:44Speaker 5: Our answer on this side is no new taxes.
91. 8:50Speaker 1: So let's dive into tax now. What the parties have already said about tax on the campaign trail so far, even though it's just begun. It does kind of feel
92. 9:00Speaker 1: like the campaign trail has been going all year, though.
93. 9:03Speaker 1: So what has Labor proposed in its capital gains tax?
94. 9:08Speaker 3: Yeah, so they have a very targeted capital gains tax.
95. 9:11Speaker 3: So you remember many years ago, the Labour Party campaigned on a comprehensive capital gains tax that would have hit everything from shares to artworks to classic cars that may have gone up in value, everything like that.
96. 9:21Speaker 2: This is not that.
97. 9:22Speaker 3: This is a capital gains tax solely on residential and commercial property, excluding the family home and excluding the family farm.
98. 9:30Speaker 3: Labour says that the funding from this tax will be used to pay for three free doctor's visits for everyone in the country. That policy will not be targeted, that will go to absolutely everyone. And they're also using some
99. 9:42Speaker 3: of it to contribute to their fair cap policy, $ 20 caps on public transport weekly across the country.
100. 9:49Speaker 1: I suppose on the complete flip side, Nationals made a pretty firm commitment on no new taxes, but what about levies?
101. 9:57Speaker 3: Yeah, none zilch nada when it comes to taxes. They'd want to touch them. A few weeks ago, when I initially asked this question of Nicola Willis and Christopher Lux, and I said, look, what's National going to be doing
102. 10:08Speaker 3: when it comes to taxes? And the answer from those two was no new taxes on working people. Well, about a week and a half after they said that, and that developed a little bit of pushback, they then launched their no new taxes campaign.
103. 10:19Speaker 2: Which they're going very, very hard on. So they are saying no taxes at all.
104. 10:24Speaker 3: Levies is an interesting question. Is a levy a tax?
105. 10:27Speaker 3: Most people would probably say yes. This got a bit awkward for Housing Minister Chris Bishop the other day announcing new development levies. which the contributions paid by developers, quite boring,
106. 10:37Speaker 3: contributions paid by developers to councils, you know, for things like roads and pipes for their new subdivisions. Well, the government is replacing that with a new development levy. The question,
107. 10:47Speaker 3: of course, is that a tax? Does that go against your election policy? Look, it's an interesting debate. But so far from the National Party, nothing materially that will hit most workers or investors.
108. 10:58Speaker 1: And ACT is in a similar boat, isn't it?
109. 11:00Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. They are the party that hates taxes the most.
110. 11:03Speaker 3: Act, of course, the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers is what they stand for. So, no, they are not promising any new taxes at all.
111. 11:10Speaker 1: Okay, so no new taxes, but then we've got the Greens.
112. 11:14Speaker 1: What are they offering up?
113. 11:15Speaker 2: Yeah, very similar to the last election.
114. 11:17Speaker 3: They have a plethora of different taxes that they are advocating for, although they have actually softened quite a bit from the last election, which is interesting. So maybe it suggests that they're reading the room a little bit there.
115. 11:28Speaker 2: There's the wealth tax. That's the key one, 2.5%.
116. 11:31Speaker 3: Annual tax on assets worth more than $ 10 million for a couple. That's a much higher threshold than last election.
117. 11:37Speaker 3: That was $ 2 million for an individual last election. So they've certainly pushed that up to take a lot of people out of it. There's also a 33% tax on inheritance and gifts. That is quite standard around the world.
118. 11:49Speaker 3: Of course, New Zealand does not have that. And then a new top 45% tax rate that will be on income earned over $ 160, 000. So there's a few things going on there.
119. 12:00Speaker 1: With the wealth tax, though, which is what I find quite interesting in this whole MMP environment, is that hasn't Labor and pretty much everybody else said, no, we're not going to introduce a wealth tax?
120. 12:11Speaker 2: Exactly.
121. 12:11Speaker 3: And this is where National's Nine New Taxes campaign comes from.
122. 12:15Speaker 2: Of course, Labor says, no, we're doing a capital gains tax.
123. 12:18Speaker 2: That's it. Nothing else.
124. 12:20Speaker 3: But you've got the Greens on the side, you've got Te Party Māori on the side, you've got the Opportunity Party on the side, all on their own back proposing a plethora of new taxes. Of course, Labour, on current
125. 12:31Speaker 3: polling anyway, would be required to form a coalition with those parties if they were to enter government. So it leaves open the question as to whether they would bow
126. 12:40Speaker 3: under any pressure in coalition negotiations to introduce new taxes, but Chris Hipkins has remained absolutely firm, there will be no other tax other than a capital gains tax.
127. 12:50Speaker 1: Yeah, and he pretty much immediately ruled out the Opportunity Party's ideas on taxes. What are they saying?
128. 12:56Speaker 2: Yeah, their key thing is a land value tax.
129. 12:59Speaker 3: That's 1.75% annually that will be charged to everyone, basically, who owns a home based on the land that's underneath it.
130. 13:07Speaker 3: So not the property itself, but solely the land cost.
131. 13:11Speaker 3: They will then use that to create a universal basic income or a UBI or what they're calling a citizen's income.
132. 13:19Speaker 3: That's about $ 19, 500 every year for every New Zealander, regardless of how old you are, whether you're working or what your status is. They say that for most normal homeowners,
133. 13:30Speaker 3: that will sort of probably give you a net benefit.
134. 13:32Speaker 3: Even though you'll be paying this tax, you'll be getting this back. If you're a couple, of course, you're getting it twice. You're getting nearly $ 40, 000 back. There will be
135. 13:39Speaker 3: carve-outs for cash-poor but asset-rich people, potentially farmers, potentially retirees are in that as well. So that is their key
136. 13:49Speaker 3: policy that they attack into the election. Labour doesn't want a bar of it.
137. 13:53Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, I find it so interesting that we know so much about these tax policies that will probably, actually,
138. 14:02Speaker 1: definitely not ever get across the line as they are at the moment. Do you reckon that there is wriggle room to perhaps, I mean, if they are at the table and they are saying, look, this is our bottom line,
139. 14:14Speaker 1: they could kind of sneak in a couple of lines of their policy if they're really that lucky?
140. 14:21Speaker 3: I mean, look, you never say never when it comes to coalition negotiations, but you also would have to think it would be quite difficult for Chris Hipkins, if he was in a position to form a government, to come
141. 14:32Speaker 3: out in the Beehive Theatre and say, look, I know I said that it would only be a capital gains tax, but look, we had to form a government, so we've got this plethora of other new taxes. It sort of seems a little bit unfathomable, and I think it would
142. 14:43Speaker 3: be a terrible way to start a government because your first thing that you'll be announcing is, oh, sorry, I got that wrong.
143. 14:48Speaker 2: Oh, sorry, I've changed my mind. Not a great way to kick things off, right?
144. 14:52Speaker 3: So I think it's unlikely, but again, it entirely comes down to how the votes fall. We look at the polling right now. Labour and National are at their lowest level in years. The minor parties are commanding more power
145. 15:03Speaker 3: than they ever have. If that translates to an election result and discussions around a coalition negotiation table, then you'd have to think, you know, they will be putting their
146. 15:12Speaker 3: foot down and demanding what they see as their key policies.
147. 15:16Speaker 1: And then lastly, onto the party that probably is pretty notorious for putting its foot down. The New Zealand First has the latest to enter the tax debate, but their
148. 15:28Speaker 1: promise is a little bit different on tax.
149. 15:30Speaker 3: Yeah, they're focusing on companies and businesses rather than individual workers and personal income tax. What they want to do is, and they announced this yesterday, is reduce the company tax
150. 15:40Speaker 3: rate from 28% to 20%. for businesses that are turning over less than $ 30 million. Now, that is the overwhelming majority of businesses in New Zealand. Of course, mum and
151. 15:50Speaker 3: dad businesses, small and medium enterprise, it's massive in this country.
152. 15:52Speaker 3: They make up the overwhelming majority of businesses. This would cost around $ 1 billion a year to the Crown to reduce this tax rate. But New Zealand First, Winston Peters says, on the other hand, in the medium term, it will
153. 16:04Speaker 3: essentially pay for itself because the expectation with this policy is is that businesses, from what they're not paying in tax, they will then use to employ more staff or buy a new kit or buy new plants.
154. 16:15Speaker 2: So that's the idea behind it.
155. 16:17Speaker 3: Of course, New Zealand First has had a number of these policies over the years, and they have found themselves in government, and there has really been no material shift in New Zealand's tax system. So it will be interesting
156. 16:27Speaker 3: to see how hard they push for this, should they be in the position to form a coalition after the election.
157. 16:32Speaker 1: And this weekend, we might be hearing about a few more policies.
158. 16:36Speaker 3: Yes, we have the campaign launches from both the National and Labour parties this weekend.
159. 16:40Speaker 2: Both of them will be in Auckland.
160. 16:43Speaker 3: Of course, Parliament finished sitting this week for the entire term.
161. 16:46Speaker 3: On Wednesday, there was the adjournment debate, raucous, rowdy debate in the House. My favourite one of the year because it's quite entertaining, actually. And now all of the MPs
162. 16:56Speaker 3: have headed back to their various electorates. They'll be getting ready to campaign again. and Labour and National will be formally kicking off their campaigns this weekend.
163. 17:04Speaker 2: Those are set-piece events.
164. 17:06Speaker 3: They're not quite on the scale of the Republican or Democratic national conventions we remember from United States elections, but they are quite flashy events, lots of lights, might even be pyrotechnics. You've got no idea what to expect, but
165. 17:18Speaker 3: this will be the major parties kicking off their campaigns for this year's election.
166. 17:22Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Ethan.
167. 17:24Speaker 2: Thanks, Chelsea.
168. 17:28Speaker 4: That's it for this episode of.
169. 17:30Speaker 2: The Front Page.
170. 17:31Speaker 1: You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at nzherald.co.nz. The Front Page is hosted and produced
171. 17:40Speaker 1: by me, Chelsea Daniels. Kane Dickey is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer is Jane Yee.
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