Steve Baron: Council Rates System Unfair & Inequitable

Let's face it, getting your Council Rates bill in the mail isn't exactly an exciting experience - rather depressing in fact, especially when they tend to increase year after year. USA President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, once said, “Taxes, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.” Well that may indeed be the case but Council Rates certainly aren't cheap when the average ratepayer coughs up around $35-$50 a week as their contribution to the millions City and District Councils collect from ratepayers. Rates are becoming forever more difficult to afford as incomes do not appear to be keeping pace with the cost of living. Even for the so called wealthy, given economic conditions that have reduced investment returns substantially, find making Rate payments far more difficult. Neither is it easy for the Council, there are always important projects and expensive projects Councils have to plan for.

Steve Baron: Inefficient Economic Policy

A subject that few people have an interest or understanding in, is economics—even though government economic policy can have an immense effect on our everyday lives, in more ways than we realise. But it is something each of us needs to give more thought to and become more informed upon rather than just trusting elected representatives and those with expertise in these areas. Does it ever seem strange to you that when we seem to be doing well as a country, the Reserve Bank jumps in and increases interest rates? This increases the cost of mortgages and business loans which become more difficult to manage which seems a punishment for doing well as a nation and is a strange conundrum.

Roger Kerr: Is Tax the Rich Good Policy?

The Labour Party plans to increase the top personal tax rate on higher income earners if it wins office at the November election.

We have gone down this path before. The last Labour-led government raised the rate from 33 to 39 cents, ostensibly to gain more revenue for social spending.

The move was unnecessary. With economic recovery and reasonably prudent spending in its first term of office, that government soon found itself with large fiscal surpluses.

Roger Kerr: Tax-Free Threshold Awful Policy

The Labour Party’s proposal to introduce a zero rate of income tax on the first $5,000 of taxable income may have populist appeal but it is seriously bad policy.

New Zealand once had a tax-free threshold. Even the Great Populist Sir Robert Muldoon was sensible enough to abolish it.