New Zealand's Tax System Under Scrutiny for Perceived Unfairness
So the government collects tax to pay for things that either we all use or we chip in for as part of being a supportive community. So roads, schools, hospitals, or even more specific things like research for diseases, making medicines cheaper and looking after kids in poverty. So there's three main types of tax. The first one is income tax, which we all know about. It's our tax on our wages or our salary. Then there's what they call consumption tax, which is a tax you pay anytime you're a consumer. So GST on Kai that you buy at the supermarket or if you hire a plumber. And the last one is called a wealth tax. New Zealand absolutely reams our workers for income tax, reams everyone for GST, and then doesn't tax wealth at all. And we are considered weirdos internationally because of this. Pretty much every other developed country has some kind of wealth tax. So that might be a capital gains tax where they tax the profit on a sale of something, or an inheritance tax, an estate tax, a property tax, or even just a straight tax on the wealth that somebody's hoarding. But we don't have any of these. Other countries tax experts look at us and go, damn, New Zealand hates its working people and kisses the ass of its rich people. There's even articles about it. So starting with income tax, these are our tax brackets. I used to think that the percentage was just how much of your money gets taken. So I used to think, damn, that's rich. What's the point of even getting a mean job if you're just going to have to give the government 39% of it anyway? But tax goes up in chunks. So the first chunk up to 15 grand gets taxed at about 10%. And then the next chunk up to about 53,000 gets taxed at 17.5%. And that keeps going up in chunks until you get to our top tax bracket, which is that 39% here down the bottom, which is over 180 grand. So if you earn $181,000, only $1,000 of that will get taxed at 39%. But do you know what actually is ratchet? Is that Australia doesn't tax your first $18,200 at all. But we do. Because if someone is earning less than 20 grand in a year, why is the government taking any at all? Let them live, man. But Australia also taxes their top end higher than us. You can see down the bottom here, their top tax bracket is 45%. So we have high income tax for our poor people, but low income tax for our rich people. Aussies at 45, Finland at 57, Sweden's at 52, the Netherlands is 49, the UK is 45. The United States might seem cheaper at 37%, but they have state taxes on top of that. So for example, if you live in New York, you'd add another 10%. But not only do these countries all have a higher top tax bracket than us, they also have some form of wealth tax. So the Green Party just recently released their tax plan, which says that nobody should be getting taxed on their first $10,000, and our top tax bracket should be 45%. And David Seymour and Winston Peters have been screaming, crying and throwing up about it, saying that the Green Party is economically illiterate, they're a clown show and they're living in LA LA land. And yet here are all these countries with a way higher tax than us, doing way better than us at pretty much everything. The Green Party's tax rates pretty much make us the same, if not better than Australia. And anyone who thinks that we're doing better than Australia right now is living in a ponzonia LA LA land. First rely on normal New Zealanders not knowing what a wealth tax is, and they try to scare everyone by saying, oh my gosh, they wanna tax your Kiwi saver and your family home, which is a lie. Their main argument is if you tax rich people, they're just gonna leave. And the obvious answer to that question is, where? Everywhere has higher income taxes than us and some form of a wealth tax. And if the only reason that people are in New Zealand is so that they can rip us off, why would we want them anyway? There's 191 New Zealanders moving to Australia every single day at the moment. And don't let anyone tell you that New Zealand is a lazy country. 95% of New Zealanders that can work are working. We have flip flop between Labour and National forever, and it's basically just been one little step left, one little step right, and over time everything's gotten worse. So it would be cool if we could be brave like Sweden or Switzerland and some of those other countries and basically go, this is not working, we need to rip it up and start again. And if you want any more proof that it's not working, look how dog shit we rank for child well-being down here. And look who ranks well, all of those high tax countries. The high tax stuff will only really affect the people who are at the very top end, absolutely creaming it. If you're earning less than I think it's 115,000 under the green budget, you're actually gonna be better off. The alternative to making sure that our government has enough money to make sure we can lift children out of poverty and have hospitals and those kind of things is that everything goes private, which means that private companies run them, which turns everything into a profit-making business, including hospitals. So think of the United States where the cost of going to a hospital to give birth is about 30,000 New Zealand dollars and if you have a C section, it's about 50,000. So I don't know about you, but I like that our government pays for our hospitals. When people say don't tax me for being wealthy, Ra Ra Ra, I just picture them sitting on a pile of cash and going, fuck them kids in poverty, that's not my problem. If you wanna hear an actual tax expert talk about how trash our tax system is in a much nicer way rather than me just yapping, this is a mean ass podcast with a guest called Lisa Marriott, um, who's a tax expert at Victoria University. And I've listened to this podcast probably about four times. It's so mean. So yeah, don't believe David Seymour when he says that the Green Party is economically illiterate. He just doesn't want you to look into it anymore.
What's right
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What's debatable
Breakdown
Summary of Claims: The core claim is that New Zealand's tax system is unfair because it heavily taxes working individuals and consumers while not taxing the wealthy, unlike other developed nations that employ wealth taxes and higher top income tax brackets. Rianatengahue contrasts New Zealand's system with Australia's and several European countries, and discusses the Green Party's proposed tax reforms.
Analysis of Evidence: Several points in the claim are supported by the provided sources. New Zealand does rely heavily on income and GST (consumption tax) and lacks a broad wealth tax, which is indeed different from many other developed countries that do have wealth taxes or higher top income tax brackets [5][6][7][4][2].
The specific comparisons made regarding Australia's tax-free threshold and top income tax bracket, as well as the higher top brackets in countries like Finland, Sweden, and the US, are also presented in the video what is said in the video and align with general knowledge of international tax systems [What is said in the video what is said in the video]. The Green Party's proposed tax plan details are also accurately reflected [What is said in the video what is said in the video].
Areas of Nuance and Contention: However, the claim that New Zealand taxes its workers 'heavily' is subjective and not definitively proven by the provided sources, although the significant reliance on personal income tax is noted [5]. The assertion that New Zealand 'doesn't tax the wealthy' is an oversimplification, as capital gains are taxed under certain circumstances, such as the 'brightline' test for property sales [4][9].
The overall 'fairness' of a tax system is a complex and often debated topic, influenced by various economic and social factors, and while the evidence points to a system with different priorities than some other developed nations, labeling it definitively 'unfair' involves a degree of subjective interpretation [6][4]. The economic consequences of taxing the wealthy, such as potential emigration, are also subjects of ongoing debate [8].