Genter Julie Anne: Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7166. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I rise to speak on the first reading of the Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill. If only this bill was really as transformational as the title implies. The Green Party will be supporting this bill to the select committee but before I get into the details of our support on this legislation I feel I must respond to comments made earlier by David Bennett about the Green Party and other Opposition parties simply wanting to raise taxes on New Zealanders. The Green Party is here working for a fair and cleaner economy that is going to benefit all New Zealanders not just those at the top.To that end we have two major priorities. Our two priorities are the two biggest challenges facing New Zealand and indeed our world: climate change and inequality. Both of those challenges are also an opportunity. They are an opportunity to create a better New Zealand—a New Zealand where every child has a warm safe secure place to call home where every child can walk or cycle safely to school where they are not only educated but nourished and not going hungry as so many kids currently are in New Zealand where families have time to spend together and are not working 60 or more hours a week simply to make ends meet and where we protect our native forests and our beaches and rivers so that our kids can swim in them as they once were able to.The tax system is a potential tool that Government has to make this a reality to make this a New Zealand where we are not contributing pollution to you know potentially civilisation-ending climate change and where we are actually reducing inequality and ensuring that every child has everything that they need to survive and thrive and make a great future for themselves. So Government has this potential tool—the tax system—and I am particularly interested in it. I think that the Green Party has a whole heap of policies that are going to create a fairer tax system that puts a price on pollution—so it is polluters who pay more—and also to create a fairer tax system in that those who have the most contribute the most back and where capital is taxed the same as income from any other source of work. I think that is perfectly reasonable. It does not mean that people pay more taxes necessarily. It does mean that we all get a better future and I think that most New Zealanders would agree that that is something worth working towards.This particular bill is not transformational. I do have to agree with my colleague Chris Bishop’s comments that New Zealand has a very simple and easy-to-follow tax system. Comparatively being originally from the United States I can tell you guys what a nightmare it is to file tax returns in the United States. Comparatively New Zealand is doing really really well.Of course things can be improved and this bill does make several mostly uncontroversial changes to tax law here in New Zealand. We absolutely want to support the updates to tax law to account for electronic communications in putting them on the same footing as paper communications. New Zealand is already pretty strong in that but clearly a number of pieces of legislation still rely on paper transactions. I think that is just bringing us up to speed with the 21st century so it is great that we are getting on to that.Another change this bill is going to make is to allow employers to manage the tax implications of employees’ shares making it a bit more simple for those employees who currently might have to file extra paper work to deal with the tax that they owe on shares. This will allow employers to withhold that just as it is done with PAYE. So that is pretty uncontroversial.I echo the concerns raised by my colleague Grant Robertson in his speech about the information sharing. There is definitely potential to increase efficiency and to ensure that there is better transparency and better compliance by allowing information sharing across Government departments but it is incredibly important that that information sharing is protected and that we respect privacy rights. I note that the Privacy Commissioner is comfortable with the proposals and seems positive about this but I am looking forward to the select committee process where we will look at this in greater depth and ensure that the proposals are not going to be resulting in unintentional sharing of private information of citizens which has occurred on a number of occasions under this Government—Government departments have shared information a little bit too widely. I think that is something that we all need to be very concerned about so it is something that we will be looking at closely during the select committee process.As I said the Green Party will support the bill to the select committee. Thanks.