Goff's comprehensive tax policy is his first plank on building the bridge back to power. I'm writing of course about his suggestion to exempt fruit and vegetables from GST. He'd be better off exempting fruits and veges from his cabinet, but that is another story. He has quickly offered a variety of fresh reasons for this bold and unexpected turnabout (given the repeated calls for this in the nine years Labour ruled), and one of them is the inevitable "other countries do it". Well, ask MP Williamson if other countries stone adulterers to death. Ask America if they stone murderers to death (albeit, using drugs, but drug users can die stoned). There's a new law and order platform for Goff. Now that ACT MP Garrett has gone, I open the paper and an alleged murderer, with 175 previous convictions, many for violence, may be getting a stiff warning strike for this one. RIP Garrett. But that's another story.
I have a better suggestion for Goff's GST tax platform: Stop taxing government services. It's a tax on tax. No tax on rates, no tax on building consents, no tax on ACC levies, no tax on car registration. It may well have the interesting incentive that even socialists decide privatization of some monopoly services might not be a bad thing. If only to gather GST revenue.
Nothing so clever from Goff. Instead, he suggests that increasing tobacco tax might do the trick. Problem is that the tobacco tax has already been increased massively, and will hit another increase in the new year. At the rate its going, the only people able to afford smokes will be those prepared to steal or murder for them. Hmm, it seems my mixing of Goff's proposed GST exemptions with a story on capital punishment begins to make sense.
I have a better suggestion for Goff's GST tax platform: Stop taxing government services. It's a tax on tax. No tax on rates, no tax on building consents, no tax on ACC levies, no tax on car registration. It may well have the interesting incentive that even socialists decide privatization of some monopoly services might not be a bad thing. If only to gather GST revenue.
Nothing so clever from Goff. Instead, he suggests that increasing tobacco tax might do the trick. Problem is that the tobacco tax has already been increased massively, and will hit another increase in the new year. At the rate its going, the only people able to afford smokes will be those prepared to steal or murder for them. Hmm, it seems my mixing of Goff's proposed GST exemptions with a story on capital punishment begins to make sense.
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