Bruce Cotterill: Election 2026 - Why more ‘free’ policies could cost New Zealand dearly

As the election campaign gets underway, the promises have started coming thick and fast. This time around, we’re hearing a lot about free stuff.

The all too familiar faces from Labour and the Greens have been joined by newcomers TOP, with each seemingly intent on outdoing the other with pledges of benevolence.

Andrew Wilford: Rich People Won’t Just Sit Still While You Tax Them

As New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani prepares to take office, tax-happy progressive groups are eager to let you know that the idea that rich people move because of taxes is all a big myth. There are no consequences to raising taxes on rich people, they argue, because rich people will be rich no matter what.

It’s a pretty picture, and a convenient one for those who have never met anything economically productive that they didn’t want to tax. The only problem is that the data proves it just isn’t true.

Kristian Guise: Wealth Tax - A Simplistic Answer to Complex Problems

A wealth tax would be immoral and impractical.

Recently, great interest has been paid to ideas of a British wealth tax. Britain’s struggling finances have caused eyewatering tax rises and seen the rise of the Green Party whose policy is to tax wealth.

A wealth tax is a direct tax on the value of an individual’s total net assets at a certain point in time. These assets include vehicles, jewelry, artwork/antiques, savings/investments, cash, property, intellectual property, and businesses. Such a tax would be catastrophic, as I will show.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: UK Labour Will Win & NZ Labour will copy its ideas.....

UK Labour Will Win & NZ Labour will copy its ideas about raising funds to rebuild public services in NZ Election 2026, which will include wealth taxes.

The front page news in the UK is that, "The Labour party has been drawing up options for how it could raise money through extra wealth taxes to help rebuild Britain’s public services if it wins the general election" (according to sources who have spoken to the Guardian).
On that note, a high ranking former NZ Labour cabinet minister (and current MP) is spending part of June in Europe, including France - visiting economist Thomas Piketty there, who is the global wealth tax master-mind. This MP will also, no doubt, be comparing notes with the UK Labour Party.

Christie: Why Wealth Taxes Won’t Work

At the 2020 election the Greens proposed a wealth tax. I remember being horrified that, if Labour needed the Greens to govern, they might make the introduction of a wealth tax one of their bottom lines. While we had often discussed a capital gains tax, this was the first time a wealth tax had ever been mentioned. But once the election was over, Labour did not need the Greens to govern, so that was – as they say – that.

As it turns out, it wasn’t.