Beaumont Carol: Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 18 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16006. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): It is a great pleasure to rise to speak to the Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill. As my colleague Dr David Clark has said although Labour is supporting this bill and we think there are some very positive elements in it we have some reservations. He started outlining some of those.This bill was originally introduced of course by the Hon Peter Dunne. Or is he that honourable in fact given that we have had such a terrible time in the House in recent days in trying to get Mr Dunne to actually clarify for us what information he had and whom that information went to? But anyway getting back to Part 2 of this bill this is of course where the substantive part of the bill lies. Part 2 has got numerous provisions actually putting in place most of the major changes that are identified in this bill and isas I have said largely uncontroversial. In fact the new rules will clarify a number of important matters.I thought I would identify some of the key elements in here but before I do that I would like to acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues who were on the Finance and Expenditure Committee which dealt with this because this is clearly a very technical bill and deals with a lot of quite complicated matters around taxation. I think it is a substantive bill obviously and those people some of whom are in the Chamber at the moment have obviously worked very hard to get it to this point.In Part 2 we deal with a number of matters dealing with foreign superannuation withdrawals and taxation related to that as well as matters relating to mining. I just want to outline some of those. Basically Part 2 looks at the mining of specified minerals to make the rules less concessionary and more consistent with those for taxpayers generally. It clarifies the rules for Working for Families tax credits makes remedial technical changes to rules for general and life insurance businesses and makes a number of other changes that are quite technical to many of us but are important. One of the things I did want to comment on is the importance of having a fair taxation system and having a taxation system that works in a way that ensures that those who can afford to pay do pay their fair share and that that is invested into our country.One of the problems we have on this side of the House—and we saw it in the House as recently as today in fact when the Prime Minister was saying: “Oh well as for the extensions to paid parental leave you’ll have to wait and see but really what Labour is proposing with an extension to 26 weeks is unaffordable.” So in other words he is saying that there is not enough income for the Government to pay for that. One of the things that is conveniently forgotten in this House is the fact that that is a deliberate thing. It was deliberately done by the National Government when it first got into power. Basically it cut taxation income tax rates for those on the highest incomes and in fact put some of the burden—quite a significant amount of the burden—on the taxpayers with the lowest incomes. It was supposedly a taxation switch.Paul Goldsmith: What’s this got to do with Part 2?CAROL BEAUMONT: Well we are talking about income tax in this bill Mr Goldsmith. I am really just talking about a well-functioning tax system to which in Part 2 we have a number of changes proposed in various areas including in relation to mining. These changes are to make this fairer and to deal with taxation rates that are applicable to that circumstance—for example in the mining sense—to make them less concessionary and more consistent with those of taxpayers generally.My point is really that this is a Government that has favoured those on very high incomes at the expense of other New Zealanders who are struggling to make ends meet. They have higher costs as a direct result of the so-called taxation switch introduced when this Government first got into power which raised GST. That directly went on to the costs that families face in this country. One of the things that that means is that household incomes are really squeezed. Prices are rising. Incomes are not rising for most New Zealanders—the 40 percent who did not get a pay increase last year.While we are talking about tax I would note that those people are the same New Zealanders who have to pay each and every dollar of taxation that they are required to pay. They cannot escape paying their taxation whereas in fact many others especially those at the big end of town do.