Friday 17th Dec 1999
Rodney Hide
Media Release -- Economy

ACT Finance spokesman Rodney Hide today warned the new government not to rush through legislation to increase taxes under urgency in the week before Christmas.

"The government should send this legislation to Select Committee in January to give it proper consideration.

"The tax changes are nowhere near as simple as the new government thinks. There are some real fishhooks in respect of what the government proposes to do with the taxing of Fringe Benefits, qualifying companies, trusts, super schemes, and what to do about imputation credits.

"I wrote to new Finance Minister Hon Dr Cullen last week detailing the problems to him and recommending that at the very least he make the proposed legislation available this week for opposition parties and tax professionals to comment upon it. He has failed to do that.

"It is a very bad start for this new government to override the Generic Tax Policy Process that has been in place since 1995 to ram through hastily cobbled together legislation to increase taxes. Labour and the Alliance's only justification for raising taxes is the ideological desire of this new government to punish and deter people from being rich and successful.

"As so far proposed, the legislation is full of holes and fishhooks," said Rodney Hide.

ENDS

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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