A revealing level of blame shifting and spin in John Key’s response to the Paper Boy/Girl Tax Grab. Here’s what he said in the NZ Herald today
Mr Key – a paperboy in his youth – said he found out about the move at Cabinet on Monday and did not regret it despite the publicity.
He found out on Monday? After the Budget had gone to print? Definitely a game of blame Bill going on here. I imagine the conversation at Cabinet on Monday must have gone something like this, ” Ah, John, we’ve got this thing called the Budget on Thursday. Nothing much for you to worry about….”
But, wait, there’s more Mr Key goes on to say
A lot of people didn’t know they were entitled to them so they didn’t bother claiming. The amounts were fairly small and overall we have been trying to clean up the tax code
Yes, that’s right the amounts are “fairly small”, that is the point! It’s tax on children who earn less than $45 a week, of course the amounts are small. That’s why the credit is there, so they can get those very small amounts back.
And yes some people didn’t bother claiming, but obviously quite a few did given that the government gets $14 million out of this.
What a load of spin and nonsense for a piece of penny pinching from the pockets of paper boys and girls.
amen to that Grant.
The ole facebooks comments have been rife today with chit chat on this one. Most people on the side of the paper boys in this case, even my more ill informed right leaning colleagues. Oh for the election to be one month from now, I think the cog has finally turned for some about who they have let into power.
I think people are finally starting to realise they have voted for a few greedy people more concerned about selling government assets to their trust funds, and keeping their business roundtable friends rich, at the expense of children and hard working low income Kiwis.
I for one would be happy to take 39 cents in the dollar again to keep children from being taxed.
Should give kids a medal for working hard, learning good work ethic, can guarantee those kids will never need government benefits in the future.
Instead we take their money off them that could have bought them a bike, so a someone earning 100k plus a year can buy another round of Dom P 202
Anecdotal I know, but some people I worked with as 15 year olds are on the benefit now. Not because they are lazy, but because they were keen school leavers and there are literally no jobs out there for them now.
But I completely agree that removing the child tax rebate will give children a reason not to seek employment, and their parents a reason not to encourage them to. Add that to a youth minimum wage – bloody God’s Own – isn’t it?
Doesn’t it just upset Labour supporters because if kids can work on a paper run there’s no reason adult beneficiaries cannot have a job?
These kids are showing up beneficiaries. While on their paper run cycling through state houses they can be motivated by the fact that their taxes pay for the inhabitants of those homes.
Yes kids should pay tax on their income as if they were an adult. The younger the better as it should motivate them never to vote for a government that wishes to raise tax when they have full time jobs.
“Doesn’t it just upset Labour supporters because if kids can work on a paper run there’s no reason adult beneficiaries cannot have a job?”
Probably not as upset as you, wondering why men and women can’t raise families on a $65pw paper round.
“These kids are showing up beneficiaries. While on their paper run cycling through state houses they can be motivated by the fact that their taxes pay for the inhabitants of those homes.”
Hatred overides logic and the result is as so.
“Yes kids should pay tax on their income as if they were an adult.”
And they should forget the unfairness and equality that makes their parents struggle everyday to stay afloat, and instead aspire to being multi millionaires who’ll crap on anyone, who can buy politicians/policy for cash, and get $52,000pa tax cuts for doing sod all except have lots of money already.
“it should motivate them never to vote for a government that wishes to raise tax when they have full time jobs.”
Does hard out capital c conservatism produce more like you, or more like me?
Like everything, it’s a numbers game.
I bet we can breed faster than you lot can find the right outfit to wear to a Gattica inspired speed dating night.
Make love, then war
Last night on One News, when asked about the measly few million he would get from picking the pockets of kids, Dunne said ‘every dollar counts’. So, does that mean he will be applying that new rule to all his own spending, like VIP limosines for example? Taxis must be way cheaper?
“Dunne said ‘every dollar counts’.”
Are you sure he wasn’t talking about his retirement fund?
When parents open up bank accounts for their new born children, to start up a slow savings fund for their future, that new born requires an IRD number or be taxed at the highest rate on any interest earned. Why so concerned now that kids are being taxed, they were taxed in the first place.
This is a bad move. I had a milk run job when I was that age, and filling in the IRD forms getting the tax return, pretty much got me into the habit of entering the Tax System properly and encourages a work ethic. A lot of kids save their return money, which encourages a saving mentality, surely a good thing?
I think the message this move sends out is to do as much under the table work as possible, which over the course of a taxpayers life probably means the Government gets less revenue overall. All for the sake of really not a lot of money.
this craven, cowardly attack on children is just about the last straw for me…. if this is what we are reduced to…. putting barriers and disincentives in the way of children developing good work ethics, and the development of independence that would have positive impacts further on in their lives, then what is the point in being here?
the actual last straw would be the utterly obnoxious, callous, bigoted comment by people who do know better, but choose to ignore reality in order to massage their inadequacies for the world to see…. truly, we have hit the bottom of the barrel when pseudo intellectuals like cactus kate feel safe enough in their bubble to make what can only be described as “nyaa nyaa naa naa naa” noises at those who are being scapegoated on behalf of the sickest, most cravenly greedy sections of what was once a healthy thriving society…
i fear greatly that if this excuse for a government lasts another two years, then there may not be enough left to rebuild with….
i used to joke about “never underestimating the stupidity of the average new zealander”….. now it’s the so called “clever” ones who have made the joke all too real…
Grant, you know as I do that there aren’t 68,000 paperboys and girls in the country.
There are a lot of kids whose parents own companies that are paying them $2350 tax free to do nothing, to minimise their income tax. This was another loophole that your government did nothing about last time Grant.
Funny how Labour’s rhetoric now is “tax is theft”.
getting desperate aren’t we whoey….need to attempt a distraction…must make them look away…. must get them to take blame…
earth to tory wingnuts… it won’t work… your failed leaders have attacked our children… nothing will save them now….
but you’re welcome to prove your incompetence by shifting to personal attacks…. oh wait.. you already have… so what happened to the name calling? did you lose your playbook in the rush?
bbf, where is the personal attack? I can’t see it. I can see you calling people “craven” and “cowardly” and talking about my “incompetence”. You don’t want to debate the issues, do you?
Why is closing a loophole to stop wealthy families from using companies to funnel money to their kids tax free a bad thing? Because they are most of the 68,000 kids who get the tax credit now. It doesn’t affect the tens of thousands of kids who get cash in hand pocket money for cash jobs.
There just aren’t anything like 68,000 paperboys and girls in NZ. It’s really fibbing to keep pretending there are.
You whats ridiculous most of the paper boys and girls I see aren’t girls or boys, usually mature men and women, sometimes elderly, having to do a bit extra to buy groceries or pay the rent, or it now seems saving for that flight ot Australia. Certainly they are not the ones that will be buying up shares in the assest sell off/theft.
Why do people even get the paper delivered anymore, let alone buy it when you get it off the internet?
very good point richie… just how large a percentage of these “paper boys&girls” are pensionersdisabled/unemployed eking out an existence, hopefully above the bread line…. are now having to bear the brunt of a tiny minorities greed?….
it raises another question… how well were these taxpayers advised regarding rebates, allowances etc by the tax dept?… are there any obligations placed on employers to inform these “paper boys” of their rights, and obligations?
the question of incompetence is demonstrated by the rhetoric.. the blunt instrument being employed as opposed to accurate targeting….
so we get to the real reason this loophole was closed… to avoid increased costs once the rebate became common knowledge…..
“small amounts of ‘in the hand’ income that would not usually be taxed at source” is how Peter Dunne descibes income that won’t be affected by the removal of the tax credit.
I don’t think its really clear yet what that will mean. I paid my son to mow my lawn the other day by transferring it from my bank account to his bank account – if “in the hand” means physical cash, then I guess I should get registered as an employer and pay paye on it if I continue to pay via a bank transfer rather than physical cash.
Alternatively, if “in the hand income” is not restricted to physical cash, then there’s surely no issue with any employer simply not deducting paye from children’s income.
Key claimed when he was a paper boy he didn’t claim a rebate. He didn’t state whether he actually paid any tax.
Smoke fogs the mirror.
key would have been working at the bank by the time taxing paper boys started….
wow..! what a guy though! he had a paper run!! i had three of them(at the same time)… i feel like i’ve found my champion at last!!
i wonder if he needed his wages to buy his own clothes? or was he one of those who got to keep it all for himself? he seems like a keeping it for himself kind of guy…
Richie and bbfloyd, adults don’t get the rebate currently. They have to pay tax on their earnings. The exemption has only existed for children. So all those adults you see delivering the newspaper are paying income tax on it.
But since you admitted that there aren’t many children with paper rounds anymore it does raise the question, just how are 68,000 kids getting the rebate at the moment? Most probably by their parents paying them an allowance from their companies and trusts to minimise their tax. It’s good that the Government is closing up this silly loophole.
Cactus Cate surely knows the money from distributing newspapers doesnt even meet the minimum wage.
@whodunniot didn’t suggest they did get the rebate, it was a comment on the state of economy and society and admit what?
I actually agree they should be taxed or in this case the money put in a universal super fund, that would make sense. That would start to make some of the changes our economy needs, teach kids about saving etc.
What I am bemoaning is this is all National have got!
How about a review of the Reserve Bank Act; and take a look at the way currency is riden by currency traders and hot money movers on the back of our inflation control efforts. This does nothing but increase our dollar and shrink our exports. Keys banking cronies wouldn’t like this I guess.
National have had four years to get some big brains around and nut out some transformative policy to help grow our economy and this is it. They have had electoral support, record export commodity prices and they come with this useless budget.
English showed more creativity in his tax payer funded double dipton two house swindle.
No-one earning under $50,000 a year should be taxed on their income. Whoops, that’s Libertarianz policy, so no-one here would like it.
There needs to be a more fundamental shift from the present pattern of renumeration than tinkering can achieve.
The general stupidity is that National and Act promote the idea that they are they party to reduce compliance costs but here they are introducing a change that increases enforcement and compliance costs.
The morality of taxing child labour is not even questioned by the politicians. Chances are taxing child labour breaches some aspect of our commitments to the International Labour Organisation, to prevent exploitation of children.
The Government would save more money by switching the entire Government fleet (including ministerial cars) to 1.3litre Toyota Corollas. Better yet bicycles! And could far more readily justify this policy shift in the budget.
misinterpretation in order to avoid the point G? the question is… how small a percentage of paper/advertising deliverers are actually the children of well off parents? probably within the margin for error at the bottom of the chart…
And when all said and done, why shouldn’t a child from a well off family have a paper route? and get all his tax back? the only objection would come from the growing number of desperate people competing for those jobs…..another trend helped along by government policies across the board….it helps keep the profits from trickling down too far, so it can’t be all bad…right?
Even bothering to argue on the basis of the governments numbers is to be sidetracked… numbers quoted by this government have become meaningless….
Well its proves just what a hypocrital lot of toe-rags Tories are.
For years they have preached “get a job !Help your self.Remember Ruthless Richarson and her “people needed to pull them selves up by their bootstraps.What a two faced lot.\hey should never be trusted,
Interesting point ghostwalker.surely if our paper boys/girls have to pay tax they should at least get the mininum wage.