ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

The Soap Box: Weird and wacky taxes

Author
Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Tue, 19 May 2015, 3:09PM
(Photo: Edward Swift)
(Photo: Edward Swift)

The Soap Box: Weird and wacky taxes

Author
Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Tue, 19 May 2015, 3:09PM

There have been some weird and wacky taxes proposed from the Beehive over the years.

The one that probably got more attention than it would ever have been worth was the so called 'fart tax' that Labour wanted to charge dairy farmers for their flatulent ruminants sending greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. In fact is was a misnomer anyway because the gas is actually emitted by cows burping rather than pumping air out from the other end.

But it was the farmers who caused a stink, culminating in the Tory Taranaki turnip Shane Ardern driving his tractor Murtle up the front steps of Parliament.

And then Labour botched its election chances last year by proposing a capital gains tax which its own architect David Cunliffe stumbled over how it'd be applied.

Now we've got Teflon John Key risking his considerable political capital by proposing a Clayton's capital gains tax, insisting it's not one even though it will tax profits, or capital gains, if a house in bought and sold with two years.

While the Auckland housing bubble's been expanding over the past few years, the Beehive's been sitting on its hands.

The increasingly frustrated Reserve Bank's been pulling the levers at its disposal, first of all requiring first home buyers to come up with bigger deposits and then more recently applying the same rule with even bigger deposits required for investors in Auckland.

The central banker's been warning for many months of what they call a correction in the housing market, when in reality what they mean is the bubble will eventually burst.

So it was with supreme irony that the words spat from Teflon John like oil from an overheated frying pan. When he was asked why they decided to act now he said they don't live in a vacuum in the Beehive and can see house prices rising more quickly than they'd like.

The new time frame for buying and selling houses was only signed off a week ago after being kicked around for four or five weeks, he tells us, before impressing yet again, that it's not a capital gains tax.

But hang on a mo, if the timeline was extended to say 10 years, would it then be a capital gains tax? Well in Key's view yes it would be because you wouldn't be in the business of trading, simply for profit.

Of course that's entirely debatable. Hold on to a house for longer and surely the capital gain's greater!

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you