Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022–23 Platform Economy and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2) because as we're all aware this is the restart. This is the new generation. This is mark 2 of this piece of legislation. Much fanfare was introduced not that long ago by the Hon Mr Parker and of course what a shocker that was. Less than 24 hours Mr Parker and that well-thought-out bill that was introduced was backtracked; absolutely removed from the House and then reintroduced. Anyway—Matt Doocey: Caught with a hand in the cookie jar.ANDREW BAYLY: —yes Mr Doocey—we will be opposing this bill on a number of counts. The first one is it enshrines the current tax rates and we are absolutely opposed to that. New Zealanders are in the middle of a cost of living crisis driven by a high inflation rate. That means that people automatically go into a higher tax bracket and end up paying more tax—even you Mr Speaker—and that means that every New Zealander is worse off and poorer. And that's why we think that there should be an adjustment to our tax rates to make sure that hard-working New Zealanders keep the same amount of money on effective terms as they would if there hadn't been such a high rate of inflation. That is why we do not agree with enshrining the current tax rates and that is why National has come up with a plan to make sure there's an adjustment for what is termed fiscal drag" which effectively means that people are paying more tax as a result of inflation. That is the first grounds for opposing this bill.The second one which I think is much more significant is what this bill entails. And the issue with this is—and I've heard Mr Parker speak just before talking about in glowing terms how GDP is increased our taxes are up; yes they are up—tax that the Government is now taking in is about $41 billion more than they were taking in when they came to office a mere five years ago and that is because of tax increases. And of course what he forgot to add is that during the last little period we borrowed an extra $60-odd billion which has basically doubled our debt under COVID. This bill is about further labouring and applying pressure on New Zealanders to pay more tax. That is wrong. I was at the Financial Services Council meeting last night—big soiree in Auckland—and talking to financial service providers. And everyone was saying to me "Why is the Government putting up taxes; why is it imposing more taxes at a time when New Zealanders are struggling to make ends meet?"This bill is one of those examples; a continuation of the philosophical approach that Mr Parker wants to take which is basically wanting to claw at every opportunity to increase the tax burden that every New Zealander company individual and entity in New Zealand has to pay. And that is why we are opposed to this. The changes to the digital platform economy that Mr Parker spoke so glowingly about again will impose additional costs on New Zealanders. And one thing that Mr Parker forgot to mention in these changes that have been introduced into this bill is that New Zealand now becomes at the bleeding edge of introducing the OECD reforms. So in terms of companies that already have existing reporting requirements that's America and France; in terms of those who are looking at introducing new proposals that's New Zealand Australia and Britain. And so we are absolutely in a minority situation; even the EU hasn't gotten to a stage of implementing the OECD recommendations. Yet Mr Parker thinks it's appropriate that New Zealand should be jumping ahead of everyone else and implementing these proposals that will increase the tax burden on New Zealanders before other countries—and many of whom have taken a leading role in developing these proposals—and New Zealand's taking a small part in it. We are jumping the gun on it. What it means is that if you provide a listed service—and they include accommodation driving ride sharing or food or beverage delivery—then the net end cost to you if you go and order those services if you go and book a bach for the summer holidays in January the cost of that bach has now gone up by a net 6.5 percent. That is a direct result of this piece of legislation and that means that every New Zealander is going to be paying more tax for stuff like going on holiday. And the interesting thing is: this thing has not been so well developed that there's not even a reference to a minimum level of compliance. So it obliquely refers to the OECD de minimus rules of 30 transactions or 2000 euros. Not even in this bill have they set out the details of how this piece of legislation is going to work. It is premature and we should be waiting to see what happens around the world because the direct result of this is that New Zealanders are going to be paying more for booking a bach if they want to go on a holiday or want to get some food delivered at night. That's the first thing about this. The second thing is that Mr Parker said that this bill is about reducing compliance. Well the second most pernicious part about this bill is it introduces a huge information requirement on platforms—New Zealand domestic digital platforms like TradeMe—to report on a quarterly basis all your transactional details and also about you personally. So Dr Deborah Russell might trade some goods on TradeMe perfectly legitimately and this legislation will now mean that she will have to recall where she lives in West Auckland her IRD number details about her personal affairs and that will be all put in—and if it relates to property it will require around the certificate of title detailed personal information about that and that will be a requirement of TradeMe to supply that information to the IRD on a quarterly basis. That is a huge information dump that this bill now requires. That is hardly reducing compliance costs. This is a way to actually hoover up information and give it to the IRD. Now perversely if Dr Russell decided not to trade on TradeMe but she decided to trade on eBay then her personal details would not need to be disclosed to the IRD. So guess where the criminal element are going to go! If you are trading products that you've stolen what are you going to do? You're going to end up trading it on eBay. This is how badly thought through this piece of legislation is. The third thing is the now absolute requirement that all Government statutory levies are subject to GST. Now we understand in the regulatory impact statement that there are about 220 statutory levies. The Minister cannot tell how many of those are not subject to GST. There are some that are not subject to GST but it now means that every Government levy is subject to GST. Again that means that every company and an individual that wants to access that is now incurring a high cost even if they are not in a situation where they can claim back that GST. That is the third element of this bill that imposes further additional costs on ordinary New Zealanders and much higher compliance obligations on many of our digital platforms. This is a poorly thought through bill and one that we will reject and fight in select committee and through this process."