Source: Poll Results | IGM Forum.
@GarethMorgannz great big new tax versus the economics profession @geoffsimmonz
20 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, politics - New Zealand, public economics
@oxfamnz attacks sovereignty of Cook Islands #StandWithThePacific #TPPA
18 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, international economic law, international economics, politics - New Zealand, public economics
Oxfam New Zealand and fellow travellers at home and abroad are attacking the sovereignty of the Cook Islands and other tax havens by demanding that the developed countries gang up on them because they offer low company tax rates.
All that plucky rhetoric of TPPA no way and how international economic agreements violate the sovereignty of countries and developing countries in particular is forgotten in a flash.
Apparently, the same governments that were at the beck and call of the corporate elites when negotiating international trade agreements, can be trusted to negotiate international tax treaties that take into the account the interests of developing countries, the Pacific Islands and small states.
Oxfam manages to have the blinding hypocrisy of opposing the Transpacific Partnership on national sovereignty grounds and at the same time call for international treaties to bully small countries about their tax policies, which overrides their economic sovereignty.
The sovereign rights of developing countries to find their own way does not extend to undermining the tax bases of the rich countries struggling to finance their welfare states.
The Pacific Islands, the once were heroes of the recent Paris climate talks, turn into pariahs once they start looking out for themselves and setting up offshore financial centres and tax havens.
Developing countries are free to impoverish themselves by embracing socialism, but if they decide to attract investment and jobs through low tax rates and offshore financial centres, a new form of colonialism is embraced by the Twitter Left.
Source: Oxfam.
The Cook Islands is one such tax haven. The Cook Islands is self-governing in free association with New Zealand. New Zealand is responsible for its defence and foreign affairs but it has full internal sovereignty.
Here’s how Scandinavian countries pay for their spending
14 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, public economics Tags: growth of government, Norway, size of government, Sweden
Some #tax cuts produce more growth than others
12 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, labour economics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: laffer curve
@EricCrampton @conradhackett the size of the New Zealand government since 1900
04 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - New Zealand, public economics
Oddly enough, the lost decades of New Zealand growth coincide with the rapid growth in the size of government between 1974 and 1992. The return of growth to New Zealand from 1992 after 17 years of stagnation and next to no real GDP growth coincided with the decline in the size of government.
Source: David Rea 2009.
Source: David Rea 2009.
Top 1% pays almost as much tax as the bottom 95%
27 Dec 2015 1 Comment
in politics - USA, public economics Tags: top 1%
@GarethMorgannz the universal basic income is inferior to the minimum family tax credit
20 Dec 2015 4 Comments
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, public economics, welfare reform Tags: Aaron Director, Director's Law, Gareth Morgan, negative income tax, social insurance, universal basic income, welfare state
Gareth Morgan’s universal basic income appears to make everybody better off except those for whom the modern welfare state was established to protect. Examples of these from his online calculator are single mothers and retirees.
Source: The Big Kahuna – Tax and Welfare.
To stay even just with single mothers blows a good $10 billion hole in the budget deficit according to the online calculator provided by Gareth Morgan. Retirees are still worse off.
Source: The Big Kahuna – Tax and Welfare.
Central to the package is a comprehensive capital gains tax despite evidence growing with each day that the optimal tax rates on income from capital and on capital gains are zero.
A universal basic income for New Zealand is a long trip to where we are now. There is already a guaranteed minimum family income in New Zealand.
The minimum family tax credit makes sure that a family’s annual income (net income after tax has been deducted) doesn’t fall below $23,036 a year ($443 per week). To qualify, you must work for a salary or wage for at least 30 hours each week as a couple, or 20 hours each week as a single parent, and receive a family tax credit.
The Treasury modelled a Guaranteed Minimum income at the request of the Welfare Working Group in 2010. A guaranteed minimum income of $300 per week – the mean benefit income among those on benefits – would cost $44.5 billion or $52.6 billion if we extended it to super annuitants as a replacement for NZ Superannuation or old age pension. The former could be covered by a flat personal income tax rate of 45.4%; the latter, 48.6%. Full fiscal neutrality would require tax rates of 50.6% and 54.4%.
The universal basic income seems to be a big day out for Director’s Law of Public Expenditure. Director’s Law is public expenditure is used primary for the benefit of the middle class, and is financed with taxes which are borne in considerable part by the poor and the rich.
The universal basic income and a comprehensive capital gains tax seems to cause a lot of economic upheaval but still struggles to make the worse off groups in society even break-even on this throwing of all the cards in the air. Brian Easton put it well the other day when he said:
Many advocates put the UMI forward without doing the sums. Those who do, find that the required tax rates are horrendous or the minimum income is so low that it is not a viable means of eliminating poverty. Among the latter are New Zealanders Douglas, Gareth Morgan and Keith Rankin.
Income sources of older people in USA, Canada, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand
18 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, public economics Tags: economics of retirement, old-age pension, older workers, social insurance, welfare state
Old age poverty rates in the G7, Australia, New Zealand and Korea
17 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, public economics Tags: old age poverty, old-age pension, social insurance, welfare state
US, British, German, French and Japanese tax revenues as % of GDP, 1965 – 2014
11 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - USA, public economics
Despite neoliberalism doing its worst, tax revenues as the percentage of GDP have been pretty stable across the G5.
Data extracted on 11 Dec 2015 09:39 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.
Nothing has happened to tax revenues as a percentage of GDP in Germany for a good 40 years. The same pretty much goes for the USA as well but with some ups and downs around the time of the GFC.
Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister coincided with the fall in tax revenue as a percentage of GDP but John Major did his best to reverse that.
French taxes have been steady since 1981 but started to increase as a percentage of GDP after the GFC. Tax revenues also increased in Japan as a percentage of GDP after the GFC.
Time spent paying taxes in USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia and New Zealand
08 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, public economics
Source: Download: Paying Taxes 2016: PwC.
How Scandinavian Countries Pay for Their Government Spending
20 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: Denmark, Finland, growth of government, Norway, Scandinavia, size of government, Sweden, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, welfare state
US, UK, Danish and Swedish tax revenues as % of GDP since 1966
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, public economics, Sam Peltzman
You can’t find Reaganomics in the tax statistics below. Maggie Thatcher stopped a rapid growth in British tax revenues which caused the UK to become the sick man of Europe. She then unwound that growth in tax revenues as a percentage of British GDP. The election of the Blair government in 1997 stopped the rapid growth in tax revenues as a share of British GDP under that double secret socialist John Major. As Sam Peltzman previously noticed, the growth the government stopped in Denmark and Sweden in the mid-1980s.
Data extracted on 12 Nov 2015 23:56 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat
Eurosclerosis illustrated in the labour market
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, Euro crisis, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: employment law, Eurosclerosis, France, Germany, growth of government, labour market regulation, size of government, taxation and labour supply
Source: Linda Regber.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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