Repeatedly, since the final report was published, Sir Michael Cullen has quoted the "statistic" to the media that 82 per cent of the assets that will be subject to CGT are owned by the top 20 per cent of New Zealand households measured by net worth.
He goes on to state (as factual) the second 20 per cent of wealthy households will be responsible for another 11 per cent , then only 4 per cent for "middle" New Zealand.
In reality, this information is based on what most reasonable people would describe as little more than guess work.
It has been used for political purposes to argue that the majority of the public have nothing to worry about, and it will be mostly the "rich" that will pay CGT.
If it is correct (which it isn't), it's a very good argument for Labour and the Greens who desperately want to see a comprehensive CGT implemented.
The problem for those wanting CGT is that the data is completely unreliable and should never have been used. We need to know why public officials used it in the first place when they knew, or ought to have known, it was dodgy statistics.
The statistic was derived by manipulating data collected from the July 2015 Household Economic Survey (HES).
The HES is conducted every year by the Department of Statistics to try to estimate where the wealth of New Zealand households is invested.
By the Department of Statistics own admission, it contains data that is so unreliable they cautioned against its use.
According to the Department of Statistics website people "should take care when interpreting income, expenditure, or wealth estimates with sampling errors greater than 20 per cent. They are less statistically reliable than estimates with sampling errors less than or equal to 20 per cent".
There are 50 individual categories of data collected in this survey (or data cells). Of the 50 cells, 20 of them are considered by Department of Statistics to have a sampling errors of between 20 per cent and 50 per cent.
Another five are so unreliable the Department of Statistics has blanked them out as it would be irresponsible to even publish them.
Some of the categories that were blanked out or "suppressed" as significantly unreliable were important assets for the CGT debate, such as business ownership and share investments.
To put this another way, 50 per cent of the survey results are considered unreliable by the Department of Statistics who published them.
It beggars belief that Treasury decided to use this information in its report to the TWG.
Senior Treasury officials who wrote this report to the TWG obviously knew the information couldn't be safely relied upon.
Hidden in the fine print of the Treasury report, it states "care should be taken when interpreting wealth estimates because the confidence intervals around any point estimates vary widely".
In layman's terms, this is like Treasury saying to the TWG: "You probably shouldn't be using this information as we really don't know if it's accurate and some of it's completely unreliable."
This raises some very serious questions about the probity of the process that need answering by Finance Minister Grant Robertson, and the TWG chair Michael Cullen (who is still on the Government pay roll). Hopefully he's still being paid to answer the question of why the TWG used this data.
Did the TWG specifically request Treasury to dig up statistics to support the political argument that only the top households would pay CGT? Did the TWG know the data they were using was largely unreliable? Treasury obviously had concerns about using it and told the TWG in its report. So why did the TWG use that data? Does the Finance Minister now accept this data is unreliable and shouldn't have been used for political purposes to justify Labour's proposed CGT?
The reality is, we don't have enough reliable information to draw any conclusions at all about which households will pay the most from the proposed CGT.
We do know, however, that there are hundreds of thousands of farmers, business owners, lifestyle block owners, bach owners and sharemarket investors who will pay a lot more tax if Labour are successful in implementing CGT.
There are an awful lot of hardworking ordinary Kiwis who don't consider themselves wealthy who will pay CGT if Labour are successful in convincing Winston Peters to support it.
For Labour to use these dodgy statistics to mislead the public would be to underestimate the intelligence of the voting public of New Zealand.
The CGT debate has a long way to go. But Labour need to come clean and be honest about the many hundreds of thousands of middle income Kiwis who will pay CGT. They also need to answer some serious questions about how, and why, the HES was used to support the main argument on fairness by the TWG.
This proposal is the most significant tax reform in many years in New Zealand and we deserve better than public officials using dubious and unreliable data to support a preconceived political agenda.
Troy Bowker is executive chairman of Caniwi Capital, a privately owned investment firm.
2 comments:
The proposed CGT.
If I wasn’t disillusioned before I am certainly well on the way there now and wondering why on earth am I slogging away at the coalface for.
Kiwi’s have been derided about our “obsession” with home ownership and we should invest in other areas. To the government I need a roof over my head even if the one I have desperately needs work. But what is the point now, any capital invested may possibly be a total waste of time even it it has been said that family homes may not be affected, but who knows.
Other investments - look what happened to kiwi’s who invested in the likes of Blue Chip and other investment institutions and lost everything. Even some substantial long standing construction and manufacturing companies have found themselves in serious financial strife so what happens to investor moneys then, principally gone. At present you have corporate directors, including a former prime minister, knowingly trading while insolvent. That creates caution. It is hard enough to put a roof over one’s head without that being threatened.
A second property as an investment is well on its way to going with the calls for more legislation surrounding tenancies and that in itself has an effect on those who are currently reliant on renting in a diminishing rental market as the average one property investor decides to call it a day more and more. Sometimes the home is the best and safest option some of us have for stability and having something to sell, to downsize to keep off elderly poverty.
Then savings and investments and now kiwisaver are threatened. We are told to invest in kiwisaver as super will most likely be unavailable in the future, that’s not entirely safe either as those proceeds are invested by providers. Not all government supported and even if they are Government backed I have my doubts as to their assuredness (trust issues).
What next the sole operator and small businesses. You are self employed for that reason to be employed, so the only thing of significant value there is the person so what next CGT on the human. It is hard enough to even grow a small business and now this would make it totally unworthwhile. Any equipment purchases devalue over time not improve in value. We have a small home based business on a lifestyle block. Wow, we are going to get hammered and we are definitely not in the rich sector. My goodness it is hard enough to put anything away including kiwisaver (I have nothing left out of my wage now, nothing). Where do we find the extra? You can only increase your charges to clients so much, as they are in the same boat trying to find extra to meet continually rising costs.
Savings and investments are already most commonly taxed at 17.5% and 33% so now you want a chunk of the capital that has taken so long to accumulate. A tax on a tax. Maybe we should be “putting it under the mattress” if this carries on.
We your average Joe Bloggs citizens are spent. Where do us average kiwi’s find the extra? The whole idea is to build and improve on something. What is the point if you end up with less than when you started or going backwards. It seems we are being told we will no longer be allowed to improve ourselves and our ability to sustain ourselves financially and for businesses to be able to grow and provide employment. Even more we are not going to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of our labour. Soul destroying, so very soul destroying. This CGT grab is not going to overnight fix the so called economic social divide. That is always going to be there to some degree. We are never going to reach a utopia nor see the Government’s books permanently in the black no matter what party is in leadership at any given time.
all governments waste money. The less money that goes into the hands of government, the wealthier a country will be.IE:- GDP vs size of Government. The lower the size of government, the higher will be GDP. This has been pointed out many times by DR BRASH. But in our socialist country, it is like casting pearls before swine. The capital gains are far better off left in the hands of the elderly and the energetic, the small businesses and the farmers who will do far more with it than any government will ever do. Capital is far better employed from bottom up not top down. Centralist/ totalitarian control of capital never works. See venezuala. Socialism just does not work. It is the enemy of the people.
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