Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I tend to agree with the Hon Julie Anne Genter that members opposite are using this rather technical bill to make some cheap political shots. Given that they have called into question the motivations of our Government around this tax bill and why we would be introducing a technical bill rather than tax changes can I remind the House that there are other ways to deal with the cost of living? In fact at the end of this week on Saturday a fifth of New Zealand—1.4 million New Zealanders—will benefit from those changes through family tax credit changes; superannuation changes which mean that couples will get more than $100 per fortnight and single people $66.86; main benefits will increase as will student allowances; and there will be an increase to child support. I am saying that because this bill is an omnibus bill which deals with technical matters related to GST; it is not about changing the tax system. Our Government prefers to use other methods to have targeted support. That is because this omnibus bill is really about just setting the annual tax rates—and as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Rachel Brooking said there is no change to those tax rates. It also does make a number of technical changes which are really to increase the fairness in the system. We've seen over the last couple of weeks the instability that can be caused in financial systems when there's a run on money. It's really important that we have a financially stable system and having a fair and equitable tax system is very much central to that. So it is unusual to be carving out exemptions—the whole buy-in from society is around paying tax knowing that it is fair and knowing that it is equitable. That is what some of the changes in this bill do in terms of just closing little loopholes but also in terms of that one that has been so contentious and misunderstood which has been around the platform or the gig economy.It is simply wrong to say that small players will be paying GST—it is actually the platforms themselves that will pay the GST. The small players that may be caught by the impact of that will actually get a rebate of 8.5 percent. Yes there may be a nominal increase that is passed on to consumers of around 6 percent but we heard plenty of people in the hospitality industry and the taxi industry say That is a good thing because it makes the system fairer." and they are sick and tired of being the ones who are having to pay GST when some of the other very big providers in the platform economy do not.Now we're going to be seeing more and more of that style of business and I'm proud that New Zealand is at the frontier of that. We are not the only ones doing it. There is a whole information framework and reporting framework around that with the OECD which is about taking a global approach to taxation so that big players who are really good at hiding their income in different parts of the world will now have to be much more transparent will have to disclose and that is a good thing for everyone everywhere. So it's a good thing for New Zealand to be at the forefront of that so I make no apology for that.One of the other points I'd like to make is just a procedural one really: to let viewers at home know that the committee is advised by really good sound advisers. They're not only the Inland Revenue Department advisers but we have the advantage of having independent advisers who work out in the so-called real world who we can bounce ideas off and get views from. This has been particularly important around matters of taxation and has led to some of the changes in this omnibus bill. So I won't mention the IRD advisers—I know they don't like to be mentioned in the House—but I will mention Therese Turner who has been a really fantastic sounding board for the committee.In terms of what the omnibus bill does actually—and the IRD advisers have been able to give advice on—is not only the annual income tax rates and that framework for reporting and disclosing that I've mentioned but it's also about the fringe benefit tax on public transport. We've heard in the House today that that has now been broadened so that there will be exemptions for e-bikes and e-scooters. Also we've heard about the build-to-rent exemption.Across the platforms we've seen the gig economy that has now been tweaked so that it is much fairer and that we have a much more universal set of GST rules for those who are providing accommodation. When you now buy your Uber Eats it's not only the restauranteur that has a GST component to it but also the driver that brings it to you. That is not by virtue of them paying the GST but the platform that they work from—and they do get the 8.5 percent rebate as I said before.There are some smaller technical little things which are good examples of where the independent adviser was able to give us some assistance. One of them is around the fringe benefit tax on cross-border workers and that was really about closing a loophole where there were some cross-border workers who had foreign employers. The law was a bit vague about what they should be paying in tax.To cut a very long conversation that went backwards and forwards short we landed on a change to one of the sections—new section RD 62B inserted by clause 93—where yes now the employee can opt out and pay their own obligations but actually in the changes here the employer must provide the employee with the relevant information that the employee does not have. That also therefore entails a burden on the IRD to make sure that those employers also have the information that they need because it would be very unfair for somebody to come across the border not know what they don't know and then have a strict liability offence around a tax payment. So that was one example of where we were able to get some good advice and have a really fulsome discussion. Another one was just around going back to the accommodation providers. Originally it was suggested that accommodation providers who are of large scale and who advertise across different platforms for 2000 nights per year—actually if they were just on one platform they would be able to handle their own GST.The select committee questioned that and that has now been extended so that they can go across varied platforms because it would be too intrusive really on those providers—on those large providers—who might otherwise be having to make commercial decisions based on their tax liability rather than where they are going to get the best exposure and visibility and where they're going to get the best custom from.The other area that's been touched on by the member Damien Smith from the ACT Party was around the dual-resident changes which is really a consequence of a legal decision that came out of Australia which made it more onerous for New Zealand companies that have dual-resident status in Australia and New Zealand. The Australian Government did say it was going to close that loophole. That hasn't happened and so the IRD's actually taken the bull by the horns and done that for them to make it fairer for them and just to make sure that they are not overly burdened by that status.So to summarise really the tax bill before us is an omnibus bill; it's a technical bill that simply affirms the current tax rates. It's not really a reason to be grandstanding about tax changes in my view. The platform economy changes are timely; they ensure that we are futureproofed for the way that business will be done in the future and that we are addressing the hiding of income from some very large players that are working only in the digital space.The GST changes are about levelling the playing field. There are distortions in the market currently; so it's disingenuous I think to say that this will cause a distortion and the dual-residency changes are really that the IRD in New Zealand I think may be losing its patience about the situation and looking after small and medium sized businesses—and large businesses—to make sure they don't have an overly onerous burden there. The cross-border workers measures are really integrity measures; they are also about accounting for a more globalised world. We have also heard speakers talk about the changes that have come in after the select committee process which is to take into account those businesses that have been really impacted by what's happened with the weather events and to make sure that when they are genuinely looking after staff with accommodation and other means they are not unfairly caught by rules which are really about profit making rather than about trying to get through an environmental and weather-related crisis.So I just thought I'd go through that to remind everybody that this is a technical omnibus bill. It confirms the tax rates for 2022 and 2023 and we have fantastic targeted support to deal with the cost of living coming in this Saturday on 1 April. I commend the bill to the House."