On morning radio this morning, Prime Minister John Key said "We are not ruling that out for 2017 or campaigning on it for a fourth term in 2017, but having a bigger one, to be blunt, than $1 billion." Asked how much was needed to deliver meaningful tax cuts, he said: "$3 billion, I reckon."
The table below uses the Treasury scoring of how much tax cuts can be delivered through $3 billion. That scoring is static. That is, no behavioural changes are assumed as the result of the tax cuts on labour supply, investment or entrepreneurship.
Source: computed from Revenue Effect of Changes to Key Tax Rates, Bases & Thresholds for 2015/16 — The Treasury – New Zealand.
The big sensitivity is how the company tax rate cut scoring treats offsets for dividend imputation credits. If there is no change in the other tax rates, a cut in the company tax forgoes $225 million a year per percentage point because some of it is clawed back through dividend imputation. The costing of the company tax cut by the Treasury when the other income tax rates are changed is assumed to be $350 million per percentage point. When calculating the dividend imputation offset, the Treasury assumes that shareholders are on an average tax rate of 30%.
If the Prime Minister chooses not to match the company tax rate announced by the Liberal National party government in Australia ahead of their election, there is certainly more room for individual income tax cuts.
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