Dr Bryce Wilkinson says when debating tax, don’t forget spending quality:
An IRD report on effective rates of tax attracted much public attention last week.
It was launched by the Minister of Revenue, David Parker.
In proposing that high income people are not taxed enough, Parker asserted in the report’s foreword that: “New Zealand is not a highly taxed nation”.
This claim is false.
Parker’s case is that we “sit in the middle of the OECD in terms of total taxes as a proportion of the economy.” That is like claiming that an obese person in New Zealand is not obese by American standards. So what?
Not being as bad as the worst doesn’t make it good.
Member countries of the OECD commonly have big (and problematic) welfare states. This gives them amongst the highest government tax and spending burdens in the world, New Zealand included.
On the Heritage Foundation’s…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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