Category Archive

NZ should look to Latin America for welfare policy

Gareth MorganApril 9, 2015Tax and Welfare

It’s time New Zealand learned what the developing world knows. Having a lot of people living in severe poverty is a disaster, socially and economically. The good news is the developing world has found a solution to it – and … Read More

House prices – The driver of inequality

Gareth MorganApril 7, 2015Tax and Welfare

Thomas Piketty’s celebrated 2014 work suggested that in a capitalist economy wealth naturally accumulates and squeezes the share of national income that accrues to workers. Piketty’s ideas have struck a chord with those who believe that there has been a … Read More

Five reasons why we close the GST loophole but leave others wide open

Gareth MorganMarch 17, 2015Tax and Welfare

To paraphrase the Southern Man: She’s a hard road to find the perfect tax system, son. Inland Revenue, local retailers and our politicians are getting hot under the collar about all the revenue being lost on GST from small online … Read More

Don’t be Xenophobic, Make Money Out of the Foreigners

Gareth MorganMarch 1, 2015Environment, Tax and Welfare

Our blog on Taxing the Mega-Rich for their Kiwi Hideaways galvanised two reactions from readers – one xenophobic a la the Winston Peters followers, and one enlightened. The enlightened folk recognise that foreign investment, tourism and immigration can all be … Read More

Tax Mega-Rich for their Kiwi Hideaways

Gareth MorganFebruary 23, 2015Property, Tax and Welfare, Uncategorized

The UK media have been reporting on the global elite buying up secluded New Zealand ‘bolt-holes with airstrips’. The story goes that these properties are being snapped up in case of a ‘global uprising’ where the poor rise up against … Read More

Why does the Green Party oppose taxpayer savings?

Gareth MorganFebruary 2, 2015Property, Tax and Welfare

Some, including the Green Party, have questioned the wisdom of the Government’s proposed sale of state houses. In this blog we will look at the detail on how this proposal has worked overseas, and could work here. The question them … Read More

Why we shouldn’t fear the sale of state houses (if it is done well)

Gareth MorganJanuary 29, 2015Property, Tax and Welfare

John Key’s state of the nation speech promised to sell off state houses (1,000-2,000 this year, 8,000 by 2017) and boost the number of social housing subsidies. This has prompted the usual bleats from the political left, but we needn’t … Read More

The housing crisis has nothing to do with the RMA

Gareth MorganJanuary 28, 2015Property, Tax and Welfare

We have long written that the problem in NZ’s housing market, which more and more people are finally acknowledging, is a crisis, is a crisis of demand not of supply. Central to the causation of inflated demand are two factors. … Read More

Whiteboard Wednesday – Gareth Morgan’s tax and welfare reforms. What does it mean for you

Gareth MorganJanuary 27, 2015Tax and Welfare

Since we have started the Whiteboard Fridays/Wednesday we have been talking a lot about capital taxes, universal basic incomes and flat taxes. Several people have asked what in means for them. In this Whiteboard Wednesday video, Geoff talks us through … Read More

Ten Types of People Who Would be Better Off with an Unconditional Basic Income

Geoff SimmonsJanuary 20, 2015Tax and Welfare

Yesterday we saw why our current benefit system is broken. Instead of our complex, bureaucratic welfare system that stigmatizes the worst off people in our society, we think every adult in our country should receive an unconditional basic income. New … Read More

Page 10 of 19
←
1
...
9
10
11
...
19
→