ACT attacks Cullen’s tax cut deceit

Monday, 16 May 2005

Rodney Hide - Press Releases - Taxation

ACT Leader Rodney Hide today hit out at the Finance Minister’s deceit over tax cuts, claiming the Government could afford across the board tax cuts out of its $8 billion surplus.

He told a public meeting in Takapuna that Finance Minister Michael Cullen had repeatedly promised tax cuts as soon as he could afford them, but now he can afford them, he is trying to pretend he has no money.

“Pretending he’s broke when the surplus is $8 billion is just plain dishonest.” Mr Hide said.

According to Mr Hide, this week’s budget is likely to contain some ‘tinkering’ to tax rules, which the Finance Minister will try and dress up as tax cuts.

“There will be changes to company depreciation arrangements and possibly some long overdue tweaking of thresholds for wage earners.

“The important thing is that this will be small stuff. A few hundred million in the context of an $8 billion surplus is neither here nor there.”

Mr Hide told the meeting that in less than a decade; New Zealand companies had gone from being taxed at 4% below the OECD average to being taxed at 4% above the OECD average.

Mr Hide also hit out at National’s flip-flopping on a range of issues, hinting that they couldn’t be trusted to deliver significant tax cuts.

“The reality is that ACT is now the only party committed to across the board tax cuts for all workers.” Mr Hide said.

*the full speech can be found on www.act.org.nz/taxspeech

ENDS

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