CUT US SOME SLACK

I was recently reading an article about Susan St John and Terry Baucher’s latest call for a harder taxation regime for all residential property in New Zealand. (Yes, harder than the myriad of changes we have already had.)

These chardonnay liberals are promoting the annual taxation of equity in residential property (private homes and investment property) with an implied rate of return. They are bitterly disappointed that NZ did not consider bringing in an accruals-based capital gains tax, and spend much of their time maligning property as an asset class to the Government and left-leaning press. Despite the biggest changes to NZ property taxes in a hundred years, this pair of academics still think tax is the major cause of house price inflation and inequity in New Zealand. They want more!

These authors bemoaned in their working paper, “” Wow! Read that through a couple of times and try not to laugh. But then consider: the Government listens to these, and the media love