Goldsmith Paul: Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoldsmith Paul: Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 20 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16200. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): It is my pleasure to stand at the third reading of this bill the Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill. It puzzles me following Dr Clark—he has a PhD I believe. I am not quite sure what subject it is in but I thought if you had a PhD you could expect that there would be some link between evidence and claims.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not think the member is being deliberately disrespectful to you in referring to your academic qualifications but he has now done so three times. I am pretty sure that you do not have a PhD Mr Deputy Speaker—I am not absolutely certain but I am pretty sure—but the member is referring to it.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I was not offended but the member ought to be careful with his pronouns and not include the Speaker.PAUL GOLDSMITH: My apologies Mr Deputy Speaker. It may well be that you indeed have an honorary doctorate from somewhere; I am not sure. But going back to David Clark the member he endlessly says that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Well there is no evidence anywhere to indicate that at all. If you can show us the data—[Interruption] Clearly there was a change in the 1980s when the Labour Government was in power but there is no evidence anywhere that you can point to that since the mid-1990s there has been any difference in terms of income inequality in New Zealand. Please show it. Rather than keep talking about it show us the facts because there are not any.The second thing is he stands up and says we should have a more progressive tax system. Well hang on a moment is it not progressive as it is at the moment? We have got nearly 70 percent of income taxpayers in New Zealand paying a marginal tax rate of 17.5 percent which is not a high tax rate and a very small group of income taxpayers—about 6 percent of them—paying around 40 percent of the income tax and much more when Working for Families is taken into account. So why does David Clark not just stand up and scream it that he really wants to follow Mr Francois Hollande’s approach of a 75 percent income tax rate. That is what he wants. If that is what he wants then why does he not say it and be honest about it? If he really thinks that that is how the New Zealand economy is going to grow—that we should get a real progressive tax system back—then why do you not stand up for a 75 percent tax rate? Because that is what the Labour Party wants. I am just waiting for Labour to do that. That party is clearly out of touch when its leader thinks his reasonably middle-range existence is one—I am not quite sure what tax rate should be appropriate for his middle range existence but there you have it.Getting back to this bill the Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill the main thing that I just want to draw attention to is that there are four main proposals in this bill. I just want to thank—Dr David Clark: Is the member covering SOP 413?PAUL GOLDSMITH: —I will come to that—the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee who have worked very collegially and hard on this bill. There are quite complicated matters around foreign superannuation and the mining of specified minerals. We had a lot of detailed submissions and we worked our way through them more or less in a collegial manner. I do want to thank all members of the committee. I just mention that the changes to the tax on foreign superannuation are designed to make it simpler and fairer both for New Zealanders returning from having worked overseas and for migrants. It is a difficult area. Where we have got to is you know it may not be perfect but it is a lot better than where we were before where we had a huge number—a very high percentage—of those people who were not actually paying their tax and not even understanding where they had to go.Finally bringing the tax treatment of mining of specified minerals such as gold and silver into line with general business tax principles is the way to go and this bill achieves that. On that basis I commend the bill to the House.