Budget Tax Cuts

Who is giving up the day job then

I'll stick my neck out and say that thought it was a pretty good budget, actually. Something for everyone, spread pretty evenly. []

I agree Tigger. While it would be nice for everyone to get pots of money, it would be at the expense of something else. I'm not sure why 9 million needed to be spent on increasing the prizes for racing though.

Labour must be desperate to give something to everyone.... I suspect it will be too little too late!

Please God it is a little too late and those who have a brain will realise that! OK guys - published statistics - do you realise that 37% of Greater Auckland residents (the largest population in NZ) are immigrants? Nasty and mean comment you might say but I am so over this Government paying huge amounts of tax dollars to "families" who have not spent generations paying for the infrastructure of this country and yet we who have and no longer have dependant children are treated like ghosts.

Somewhere in my office I have a Herald article stating that a family with two children earning from memory $70,000+ are paying no tax under the Labour Government and yet a single person on around $35,000 is paying $13,000 in tax. If you own your own home, you are paying the same Rates as a family of four with the same $value, you are paying near enough the same for insurance - so why are the single people in this country being so harshly treated? Do they assume we are all 16 years old? Hell if I have a baby at 16 I can get all sorts of Government help but if I am 55 and have raised my family through some of the harshest years of tax ( 23% interest rates, no family benefit etc) I don't count? Why should I have had to do 30+ years of hard yards only to have a Government in place that at the flick of a pen can say I don't exist except for being a cash cow for immigrants, child solo parents and families on huge incomes. Perhaps this crosses with the other thread as to why so many are leaving NZ.

I have no problem with women being solo parents who have married with the best dream in the world of being together for a lifetime, having children and then it all turns to custard and they have do do it solo - but empower the non existent father body to get their contribution back! No problem with helping them but why are families earning so much money (over $100,000 qualifying for Govt handouts if they have children) getting help? A block of cheese and a litre of petrol cost me the same as them so why? No $2 shpps or cheap cars in my day.

I emailed John Keys a few days ago about this situation and will be interested to see if I get a reply.

Nine years this Govt has had to do something about it and now in election year we have a lolly scramble. Jeeze. Are we being treated as numbskulls? YES!

What I cannot get my head around is why does the govt have to spend the surplus. In my business, if I pay all my bills and pay my taxes, the residue is my profit. In the Govts case the surplus is the profit. They have allocated all the money for the year. spending is up, taxation is up. If say they have a surplus (profit) of $5 billion, then this money should be returned to us as taxpayers (shareholders) There is and always has been, enough money to give back in tax cuts. But no, aunty helen and co have always been opposed to tax cuts.

So no, it is a lousy miserable budget.

I've spent the last hour making lists of how I'm going to spent mine LOL. I thought it was a joke.

I agree that politicians seem to think they are doing us a favour giving back OUR money

Di, not too sure who told you that families with children aren't paying tax - we paid over 30k in tax last year, being a family with 1 child and 1.5 incomes, although we did bother getting an education, so that is probably counting against us..... with a labour govt.

DiDi......... you are just about right.......

Please God it is a little too late and ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but wait ,,,
there is more!

People seem to have short memories....... eg Student loans
I know some that got the loans and bought properties!!!!!
and some leave this land of Milk and Cheese, and leave for OS.

Dont you get tired of phoning up a depart or biz and get " a new person
from parts , perhaps unknown, who cant speak english properly and you
do not understand them!!!!!!!

I should learn another language perhaps! or just "shut up"

cheers
Gaalburn.

Love a challenge - found the article! NZ Herald Feb 24 2008. Bear in mind I was getting snotty about the childless tax situation.

Working family with 1 child earning $35,000: net gain after tax $559 per year. Single childless person earning $35,000 faces a tax bill of $6825 per year. (Sorry I exaggerated) BUT... that is a $7,384 allowance for having one child.

The thrust of the article was "How to pay zero income tax - or less" But the catch is you have to be willing to change nappies and abandon your social life. Under the working for families scheme being fully rolled out in the current year, 75% of all families with dependant children are eligible for some form of tax credit.

The IRD says it can't say exactly how many households will be in this position. But families at the following income levels and below are effectively paying zero tax or less. A childless person at the same income may end up with a better social life, lower food bills and no school fees to pay, but they will be thousands of dollars worse off in tax payments.

The "following income levels" referred to above go from above example to say, Working family with 4 children earning up to $47,500: net gain $882. Single childless person earning $47,500 faces a bill of $10,545.

At the other end of the scale, it claims that a family on $80,000 with two children paid 14 times as much tax as a family on $45,000, raising issues of fairness.

So this is another reason to be a LSBer. Have only one of you working,(presumably) have babies, grow your own food supplies, claim the credits and you will be better off. Whichever way you look at it Oskatd, it is Socialism - distributing the wealth of some to others and obviously you are right about your situation. Silly girl - you should have remained uneducated and had lots of children!

I can't help wondering about the anti smoking family on TV at the moment - pregnant with her 11th baby?

Hubby and I (a pair of DINKS) are getting pretty damn sick of paying for parasites...these include: those with kids, the elderly, oh yeah and those with kids!! [}][}][}]. (I love my nephews and neices...well some of em, but by god I'm getting sick of paying for em!).

This is the first year where we will be looking for the party who spends the LEAST amount on above said parasites to cast our vote to.

Kilmoon did I read you right? The elderly are parasites?

Cheers,
Ronnie

The Elderly paid for your upbringing and education. The kids will pay for your Superannuation. So who's the parasite?

NZ needs kids. Otherwise we'll have to import more immigrants to run the country when we get too old and decrepit to do it ourselves. We do actually need each other.

By the way, the students are now allowed to borrow an extra $5 a week for their living allowance now. Which means that they'll be lucky enough to have to pay back even more money, when they finally get a job that is meant to pay more, once they graduate. I haven't seen these wonderous high paying jobs our kids as supposed to get yet. They all seem to want graduates with 3 or 4 years of paid employment experience behind them. What planet do some employers live on? I thought experience was something you gained while working at the job you'd been trained to do? Where are the jobs for ground level graduates?

I think that National's idea of a 3 month trial period of employment, will give new graduates a better chance of getting their foot in the door and getting started on their career. Then they'll be able to pay off their student loan quicker.

I know of at least one faimly with children who are in a negative tax situation. Thats right they get more back in had outs than they pay. I might add they are really proud of this[!]

Sadly I believe that making the choise to have a child means that you can afford to provide for that child:confused: