Tuesday, 24 July 2007

Time to bury capital gains issue, says Dunne

United Future leader Peter Dunne says it is time to bury the idea of introducing a capital gains tax.

He was commenting on calls by the CTU for the introduction of a capital gains tax, stamp duty on new homes, a mortgage levy scheme, and removing the ring fencing of investment property tax losses in its submission to the Finance and Expenditure Committee's inquiry into monetary policy.

"The idea of a general capital gains tax has been around since the 1980s but has never gained any support, and even today only one political party advocates it.

"It is simply not going anywhere and the time has come surely to bury it because no government will ever implement it, so it is a complete waste of time continuing to discuss it," he says.

Mr Dunne says the other ideas mentioned in the CTU submission seem headed for the same dustbin.

"The mortgage levy was widely rejected when floated earlier this year; the political support simply is not there for removing the ring fencing of property tax losses, and stamp duty is a cumbersome measure which was abolished years ago in New Zealand.

"All these measures smack of nothing than good old fashioned envy politics, and are about as useless as the capital gains tax proposal.

"They are political suicide for any government that dares contemplate, let alone implement any of them, and the sooner the theorists and the ideologues understand that, the sooner they can all be buried.

"United Future will have no part of bringing these backward looking, draconian measures anywhere near the discussion table," he says.

ENDS

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