JC: Addicted to Tax and Spend

Labour and the Greens, in fact, the political left globally, are addicted to two things: tax and spend. The more they tax, the more they spend. So we end up as a country like a dog chasing its tail because the tax take, no matter how much, is never enough to cover the spending. What’s worse is that much of that spend is wasteful.

Frank Newman: A Budget of Low Expectations

The Budget has sent us yet another reminder that New Zealand has become a miserably dependent and introverted society.

It’s a sad state of affairs when reducing prescription costs by $5 is heralded as a great initiative and roundly applauded as a policy of significance by those in charge of the taxpayers’ wallet.

Let’s face it, a government giving back a few dollars that the government has taken from someone, is not going to be a life-changing event. It’s not going to make people who are currently dependent on the state less dependent – and it’s certainly not going to make them more aspirational about the future. Nowhere in the budget was there any hint of transitioning people from welfare to work.

Barry Soper: Labour should know tax decisions will be out of their hands

Read their lips: there'll be no new taxes, other than for the wealthy, under the second term of a Labour led Government.

That's simple to say but hard to do. As genuine as the sentiment may be, Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson know that it's a decision that almost certainly won't be entirely theirs to make.

Tax issues dogged Labour before the last election and after it. Shell shocked by Winston Peters' appointment of them, they shelved the captain's call made by Ardern for a capital gains tax in her first term as Prime Minister.

Frank Newman: No new taxes, but lots of tax increases

"No extra new taxes until after the 2020 election." That was the promise made in September 2017 by the then newly appointed leader of the opposition.

This week the Labour led government introduced an omnibus Bill to Parliament that when passed into legislation will, among other things, collect GST on low value imported goods and will ring-fence tax losses on rental property.

The GST change will apply to imported goods valued under $1,000. The target is online shoppers who to date have not paid GST on their overseas purchases. They will now find those purchases cost 15% more as from 1 October next year.