Foss Craig: Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Foss Craig: Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5959] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 I rise at last as the Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill comes to the Committee stage. It is normal and courteous but right also as chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee through which this bill passed that I acknowledge and thank all those who have assisted in getting the bill to this point. I thank mainly my colleagues on the committee. Across the committee there was a very good process and there were many different points of view. New understandings of the issues in this somewhat massive bill were garnered by members on our committee. 
I need to acknowledge our independent advisers with whom we started a new angle in that we brought in an independent drafting adviser. A mere look at this bill will probably give members reason why we needed to do that. I also thank our official advisers and I acknowledge and thank the submitters who submitted in writing who presented before us and who engaged with officials and ministries throughout this Parliament and also in the last Parliament as well. We remember that this bill first arrived in the House in I think July 2008. I also acknowledge that large parts of the original bill were carved out and formed part of the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill we put through in January and February this year. Again I acknowledge members on all sides of the Chamber for assisting us with that. 
I will give a challenge to Hansard if I can and I would like to have an audible sigh—aah—at the thought of getting the bill to this point. That is a challenge; I would like to see that one. The bill comprises 431 clauses in Part 1— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Read them out! 
CRAIG FOSS 
: Do my colleagues want me to read it? I tell them that I have actually been reading it for the last 6 months. Believe me if any members have trouble sleeping I can pull out some clauses and parts that may be of interest to some of them. But I say seriously that very very serious matters are addressed in this bill. The bill is quite fundamental and there is a lot of strength in it which I think we will see in its passage through the Committee stage. I think the bill has six or seven parts and as I noted before the bill was introduced in the last Parliament under the previous Government. Like quite a few bills that we have picked up it has been added to and improved on and perhaps had some value added but it has had input from all parties to get it to the point where we are now. 
I will talk to some of the specific clauses later in the Committee stage. In this tome of a bill there are 668 pages before we get to Part 2. There are many quite fundamental changes just in Part 1 including the underlined changes to the Income Tax Act and to the Climate Change Response Act in changes to the GST treatment of emissions trading units or alternative units. There are Government funding changes to film and television to research and development to portfolio investment entity rules and to International Financial Reporting Standards rules. There are interpretations remedial changes and some fundamental changes to the way in which life insurance is taxed and perhaps more of a modernisation of that matter. I think that members might spend a bit of time on that particular issue; it occupied our committee for quite some time and some of the explanations and diagrams we got from officials on the way through were very beneficial. 
Part 1 also deals with payroll donation changes. That issue was one that occupied quite a bit of the select committee’s time and members will note that in the commentary the committee talks about some of the process we went through to get buy-in and acceptance of the changes and amendments brought in at that stage to enhance the intent under the trust side of payroll provisions and to deal with the obligations and commitments that Inland Revenue Department officials gave to us as we agreed that this part would be rolled out. There was some give and take on that matter and some assurances around the department’s systems and its education for the public given our knowledge of the systems and availability of various avenues for information. Thank you.