McClay Todd; Parker DavidHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you to the Minister. Actually what he's described is not levelling the playing field in as far as GST is concerned and there's some real-time examples of that. What the Minister has tried to suggest is that actually what he's doing here is the same as what we did when we were in Government and as I remember I might well have been the Minister at the time. What we said was where one supplier overseas provides goods to New Zealand—tangible goods to New Zealand—over a threshold they must register for GST and we would simplify how that would be done. And the reason for that is the thresholds remain the same. The example that the Minister gave—and he mentioned our finance spokesperson saying that they should all be treated equally and the same and fairly—is correct. But this legislation does not do that.If we take a New Zealander that has a bach and they want to rent it out on a nightly basis and they advertise in their local newspaper or in a magazine and that is rented a number of times and they collect $10000 during that year they do not have to Minister register for GST. But if that very same New Zealander uses an online service—in New Zealand or overseas—they will have to register for GST and therefore an additional 15 percent will be charged to them. In effect what the Minister is doing is saying whilst the GST system in New Zealand is simple and it's very very straightforward it's not complicated it has rules in it he's saying in this case—because this is a Government that wants any single bit of tax it can get off New Zealanders to spend not on those New Zealanders but on things the Government decides are priorities—that they're going to change the GST system and not keep it equitable or fair and just collect off those New Zealanders irrespective of how much they earn. Now if this legislation had said where a New Zealander with a car on Uber or a New Zealander that rents out a property over Airbnb receives $60000 worth of income in that year they must pay GST that would be fine but the law already says that—that actually if they collect $60000 or more or if they expect to collect $60000 or more in a year they must register for GST and charge it. That's not what this legislation is doing and it's quite quite different from what was done in a previous Government to what we're doing now. For the first time that individual who will be having GST collected on their behalf does not have the ability to offset any GST expenditure which would be the case if they were registered normally under GST in New Zealand and the reason for that is the Government has decided that actually an average of what their expenditure may be means 6.5 percent would be what they would be getting back or what wouldn't be passed on. Minister you haven't made the case that New Zealanders won't pay more for this. For any New Zealander out there that has a business that earns or expects to earn $60000 or more irrespective of how that money is collected—internationally domestically via post through advertisements online—they should and must register the GST but that's not what this legislation is doing; it's saying to New Zealanders that make a bit of money on the side who have a tax obligation placed upon them to pay tax on that money that they're earning that irrespective of the amount that they may end up charging or earning in a year GST will be collected on their behalf they won't be able to claim GST back because the Government is deciding how much they should get back and ultimately it is the New Zealand consumer that will pay more. Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Well interesting that I didn't hear from that member any reference to Nicola Willis' statement on 1 September: It's about fairness ensuring motels are treated the same as Airbnb and Ubers are treated the same as taxis." But I'm not surprised. Look the policy rationale for why you have a $60000 limit for GST turnover before you pay GST isn't that people charging for less than $60000 services per annum should have a GST advantage over other people; it's just that when you're a small business like that the administration costs for a small trader are disproportionate to the GST that would be collected. So it's an administration rule that's an efficiency rule that sits behind that. And of course that just falls away when instead of 100 Uber drivers all doing their own GST returns you collect it at the platform level because of course the compliance costs associated with this just are so much lower on average because it's one GST return for Uber rather than 100 GST returns for 100 Uber drivers. So that's why you can move away from the $60000 threshold. As to the point that the Uber driver doesn't get the benefit of their inputs they do in the calculation that is made which is why in effect they are paying a net GST of 6.5 percent instead of 15 percent gross."