Bayly Andrew: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 31 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10126. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on the second reading of the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill. It is very nice that the previous speaker Grant Robertson agrees with much of what we are trying to achieve here and I thank him for that contribution. Of course as we have all heard this is an omnibus bill and covers three key aspects: resident withholding tax GST aspects and student loans.I want to focus a little bit on the GST but it is worthwhile just going back with regard to the resident withholding tax element of this bill. I think it is just worthwhile reminding people that this is actually the third leg of our treble. We have already brought into play the brightline test we have brought in the requirement to get an IRD number and a bank account number and of course this is the third bit which is around resident withholding tax to make sure that New Zealand is actually able to capture the tax that is due to the Inland Revenue Department. It is a prudent measure in terms of putting in place a mechanism that collects the money at the time of sale. The conveyancer does that on behalf of the Government and does it in a way that means that sufficient money is kept in New Zealand when there is a foreign buyer involved in selling residential land. I think it is a very pragmatic step.A lot of people said: “Well it doesn’t raise any money.” That is not the intent of this part of the treble. It is about putting in place a package that means that for foreign owners buying residential land there is now a good cascade of legislation to make sure that those transactions are handled in an appropriate way. If they are selling residential property within 2 years they do have to pay tax and we have got a record of who is buying and selling.In terms of the GST element I think this is a very good piece of work particularly with the help from officials. We are obviously trying to even up the playing field for the retail sector in New Zealand—an important part of our economy and business. Of course what we are trying to do here is deal in a pragmatic way with how goods or services are provided by offshore entities to New Zealand businesses. I think it is important to note that this is focused on “B to B”—business to business—to make sure that those foreign firms if they are selling their services or goods in New Zealand include in that purchase price the GST.That should be payable to New Zealand and of course what we have put in place is a minimum threshold that means that if a foreign business is selling more than $60000 a year then it will have to register. Of course that means that there is an account of that. And for those types of services loosely described as remote services I think it is worthwhile to talk about what we mean. Remote services include digital—and the previous speaker Grant Robertson spoke about this; video music software—and more traditional services including legal and accounting or advisory skills. It is really important that we put in place these measures and it is all part of that move towards making sure that New Zealand businesses and retailers can compete. So I think it is a very good omnibus bill and I thoroughly commend it. Thank you very much.