Beaumont Carol: Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15387. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): I do not often get to speak on taxation bills so it is interesting to speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates Employee Allowances and Remedial Matters) Bill. As others have said this is a bill that we support going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We have some reservations but clearly we can look closely at those matters in that select committee. There have been some very good contributions I have to say from this side of the House on this taxation bill.The previous National speaker Mr Hayes talked about fairness in taxation. We would all say that that was a good idea but unfortunately the Government’s practice to date shows no sign of looking at taxation in a fair way. What did we see when this Government was elected? We saw of course substantial tax cuts for the very very wealthy. What we are seeing here is that there are huge amounts of unpaid tax dollars. There is a billion dollars in tax going unpaid. Around 300 individuals owe over $1 million in unpaid income tax. How many wage and salary earners have unpaid tax? I will tell you. Probably zero—because they have to pay. It is taken out of their pay—PAYE. So we do not have a fair taxation system. Those who are on wages and salaries pay every single dollar that they have to.As others have talked about small-business people including as my colleague Mr Little talked about some people who do not even know that they are small-business people the so-called contractors often find themselves having difficulty with taxation issues and owing comparatively small amounts. That is not to say they should not pay them but they do not get away with having that sort of money unpaid. However at the other end of the spectrum we see very substantial amounts owed by a comparatively small number of people—as Mr Cosgrove calls them the big end of town. Actually these are matters that should be looked at by the select committee if we are serious about fairness in taxation.This bill I believe relates to matters formerly raised by Peter Dunne and will tidy up some of the changes the petty rules that were implemented under Peter Dunne—namely the tax on plain-clothes police officers and the accommodation tax on earthquake rebuild workers. So that sounds like a good thing to be doing. Also apparently the bill is related to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of the United States something I do not know a great deal about. These are things that clearly the select committee will be able to work on. But I do think it is important to work on the matters that have been raised on this side of the House around where the emphasis is—on fairness in taxation. The Government would rather spend millions of dollars intruding on the privacy of solo parents who are under suspicion of fraud than chasing up people who owe millions of dollars. So let us get that issue on the table at the select committee and look at those things.I do find it interesting just to conclude that we have had a couple of members opposite talk about needing to have taxation reform so we can grow the economy and have more jobs and better incomes. Well there has been slight evidence of that. Forty percent of New Zealanders got no pay increase last year and we have just seen important research come out on child poverty in this country. So there are fine words but very little action.