The Kiwi Party gained some decent publicity from their weekend conference; they certainly need it.
In terms of election strategy, playing on the anti-anti-smacking petitions makes a lot of sense for them by seeking to carve out a niche largely unoccupied by incumbent parties. Interestingly, for a Christian party, their press releases make no mention of their faith. Their policies on marriage, however, have conservative Christianity written all over them.
While their other policies are generally populist it’s hard to go past replacing fuel taxes with GST as a new high point for economically illiterate populism.
4 responses so far ↓
Hans Laven // 18 August, 2008 at 2:17 pm |
Yes, what a masterful plan, just “designate” 2% of current GST to replace fuel taxes! Then we could designate 95% of car licencing fees to replace income tax, and then designate 90% of ACC taxes to replace car licencing fees, and so on until we have no more taxes! Then we could get everyone into pyramid schemes so nobody needs to work any more. Amazing what’s possible with a bit of creative postmodernism, huh?
Richard // 18 August, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
Bit harsh Hans, but yes shuffling the tax burden around which solves nothing.
Al // 20 August, 2008 at 1:12 am |
I think its not a bad suggestion – if the funds for roading are looking to be diminishing as they say, and the roading is in dire need of upgrading then its going to require more cash. Its not shifting taxes – its finding a healthier vein.
Why should only the road users be taxed if everybody benefits from better transport lines? Better productivity, better economy all round..
Richard // 20 August, 2008 at 9:11 pm |
Addressing your second point first, taxing road users for the roads rather than everyone makes more sense as then the costs of the roads are passed on to everyone who uses them. Even if you never drive a car or catch a bus you pay for the roads through firms passing on the cost of their road taxes. This is more fair than paying an arbitrary percentage of your general spending. For example why should someone who buys $100 of music over the internet pay the same amount of road tax as someone who buys a $100 taxi ride?
Assuming the same amount of tax raised you’re likely to get worse productivity as everyone won’t be making decision based on what things actually cost to produce, since roading costs aren’t linked to road use.
If you want more tax because vehicle s are more efficient it make more sense to raise petrol taxes. In the case of diesel this isn’t an issue as you pay by the kilometre so the fuel efficiency argument doesn’t apply. For petrol if you are using less petrol by having a more efficient car then an increase in petrol tax won’t leave you out of pocket.
As for shifting taxes, it’s notable that the Kiwi Party don’t say how they’re going to make up the GST they’re shifting to roading. I suspect it’s because they haven’t thought that hard about this idea.