Given the fiscal pressures facing the
Government, I will be looking for changes that involve the highest economic
payoff for the lowest fiscal cost.
In the outbound investment area, the Review
captured the conundrum perfectly.
I quote:
"On the one hand, New Zealand does not
want to induce our most mobile taxpayers to consider moving from New
Zealand. On the other hand, New Zealand does not wish to adopt a built in
tax incentive that causes people who remain in New Zealand to see a tax
advantage in investing off shore rather than in New Zealand."
"But it is precisely this type of system
that produces a tax incentive to invest off shore that is the international
standard."
The Review's preferred solution is that
investment in listed shares and securities be taxed at a standard
risk-free rate of return, no matter the country of investment.
I am interested in this idea because it has
the potential to make the relevant tax rules simpler, fairer and more
effective. I hope to be in a position to set out in some detail the likely
direction the government will take on these issues in the upcoming budget.
This is an extract from a
speech that Michael Cullen, Minister of Finance, gave to the Ladies' Probus
Club in Auckland on February 22.