Williams Andrew: Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15382. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): On behalf of New Zealand First I take a call on the Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill. In that respect New Zealand First with a great deal of caution will be supporting this bill to go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee because of the fact that we believe that it does need the light of day it does need comprehensive analysis and it does need widespread public submission on it.An up-to-date fair and effective tax system is fundamental to our democracy. This is a significant and complex bill that covers an extensive range of tax matters. The public must have their say on this legislation. New Zealand First will be closely scrutinising the detailed provisions of the bill. One aspect we will be paying close attention to is the inter-Government agreement with the United States on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act known as FATCA. We will need to have clear information on what is actually intended through this inter-Government agreement and how many New Zealanders are also affected as a result. We will be looking for answers to many questions—for instance has a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis been done on this inter-Government agreement? Just how will New Zealanders with US connections be affected? We will need to know in whose interests such an inter-Government agreement really is. Is it in our interests? Or is it in the real interests of the United States?We will want to know who has been consulted over the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act aspects of this bill. Will New Zealand’s sovereignty be impacted in any way as a result of this legislation? Will New Zealand’s privacy and human rights legislation be affected in any way? Will there be snooping on citizens within New Zealand because they have some US connection and does this therefore open the door for monitoring or surveillance or entering into people’s private lives in New Zealand because they may have some connection with the United States? These will be some of the questions that we will be fleshing out and requiring the Government to answer.There are hosts of questions and the Minister of Revenue must be accountable for them. We do not want another situation where in years to come we find that there has been undue intrusion into people’s private lives as a result of a foreign country perhaps dabbling in our own internal affairs.Back in New Zealand in terms of this bill there are also implications in terms of employee allowances and employer-provided accommodation. Accommodation allowances and other payments provided by employers to employees in terms of reimbursing them is under scrutiny in this bill. Again we would question some of the rationale behind that and again this Government says that it is trying to reduce compliance costs and the costs of doing business in this country. But is it reducing compliance costs and is it providing the right message to businesses and employers and corporate New Zealand if this Government is going to go after staff and executives who are being remunerated or compensated for accommodation while undertaking their business? As we have heard other speakers say this is not necessarily a perk. It comes with the job. People travel on behalf of their companies on behalf of their organisations away from their families away from their wives their husbands their partners. It is not all glamour. Most of it is hard graft.For companies and employees to start being monitored in terms of whether that is seen as a private benefit it starts to again move into the area as the Government did earlier this year where it looked at bringing in a car-park tax for the Auckland and Wellington central business districts. Again it was found that the $18 million of revenue that the Government was going to secure from that particular tax was going to cost the companies something in the order of $30 million in costs to provide the $18 million of revenue to the Government. It was a total nonsense and the Government withdrew on that occasion. Again if this is going to create undue burden on companies to monitor accommodation and employer-provided accommodation while people are conducting their business will it be another situation where the costs simply outweigh the value of it to New Zealand business?There are a lot of aspects to this bill. It is quite complex. We look forward to it going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and being drilled down into and all the various facets of it being exposed. Thank you.