Tabuteau Fletcher: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10377. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): Thank you Mr Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to stand up on behalf of New Zealand First in relation to this taxation legislation. I wanted to touch on just a few things that coincidentally have already been raised and just reaffirm some of the words that have been spoken already in the Chamber. This is a highly complex bill and a number of the pieces of legislation that are being altered are significant and quite varied. It is important that we get this opportunity to come back and touch on each and every one of them.I first of all want to add New Zealand First’s voice to the charity discussion. The intent there is to ensure that a student is recognised as still being domiciled in New Zealand for the purposes of repayments in terms of their student loan. We acknowledge that this is the right and fair thing to do but in reference to new section 27Ainserted by clause 7 “(1) The Commissioner must keep a list of entities that are charities for the purposes of section 25(1)(b). (2) The list must specify”—I will not go and read all of that out because I think there seems to be a consensus already that the specificity is quite detailed. In fact there should be greater debate and perhaps a question for the Minister in the chair Michael Woodhouse about the level of obligation for charities in terms of declaring of information because I would suggest we may have gone too far in terms of the charity’s obligations.Also new section 27E—are there currently entities—oh yes I have a question to the Minister. New section 27E inserted by clause 7 is quite specific. It says that entities listed under the Act as charities do not meet the criteria set out section 27B. The question is are there entities listed under this charities component of the legislation that do not actually meet the current criteria? If that is the case then does the commissioner now have an arbitrary right to delist them from that charities list? It is a fair question a reasonable question and something that we would like clarity on.Then if you actually move on to new section 176A inserted by clause 23 the level of disclosure goes quite far. What the question is in new section 176A is a question around the charity being able to contest the decision of the commissioner around the charity listing in the legislation. It says the entity can contest the decision if it believes it “is not fair and reasonable;”. My question to the Minister is—new section 27B sets out a very clear and straightforward list of the definitions in terms of requirements for defining what a charity is so what is the opportunity there for entities to say what is not fair and reasonable about the decision? It is legislative—it is a tick in the box. There is no debate involved in it; they are either a charity under the Act or they are not. It is just a matter of confusing the issue there.If I could take the Committee’s attention to new section 209A inserted by clause 26 “Disclosure of information to Australian Taxation Office in relation to borrowers who are or may be overseas-based”. New Zealand First looked at this part of the legislation and said that actually that is quite reasonable. We are very clear on our expectations for New Zealanders in terms of paying back their debts and their obligations in terms of borrowed money. When we looked at the legislation we said: “Well it makes sense that New Zealanders overseas should be required to do the same thing.” and so we ran into the issue about information sharing. The solution in new section 209A(1) is to “(a) obtain or verify contact details of borrowers who are or may be overseas-based; and (b) administer the student loan scheme in relation to those borrowers. (2) For those purposes the Commissioner may provide the information set out …”.Again the level of detail there is quite high but I just want to take this opportunity to make a contrast because we have current issues in front of the House at the moment where we look at the clear ability for two Governments to come together talk very clearly with one another on information sharing data sharing contacting individuals—