Hide Rodney: Estimates Debate —  
Hide Rodney: Estimates Debate —  
[Volume:610;Page:7170] 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I thank the Minister of Revenue who is the Minister in the chair for giving me a chance to whack him for 5 minutes. 
Darren Hughes 
: Someone’s got to help the ACT party. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Well someone has to point out for the benefit of Darren Hughes what is happening in this country. For the Minister’s information I am looking at page 1117 of the Estimates of Appropriations which provides $113 million for audit functions. 
We have a Government that wants our country to become richer yet its very policy is to punish the rich. Members should ask themselves how that works. We have heard today from the Government that it does not want to give taxation cuts to the rich. Indeed what it did was to put up taxes for the rich. What was the Government’s definition of “rich”? It was that anyone who earns over $60000 is rich and should be punished with a tax rate of 39c in the dollar. We on the Opposition side of the Chamber oppose that. We say that the way to run a proper tax policy is to have simple rules that are enforced and those simple rules are to have a low flat tax. 
I want to point out something quite serious that is going on and I am pleased to see the Commissioner of Inland Revenue here. However I want to speak directly to the Minister of Revenue because I believe that this country is in danger of shooting itself hard in the foot. The Inland Revenue Department is targeting taxpayers simply because they are rich. It goes through the rich list finds out who is rich and then hassles those people in terms of the audit function. 
We on the Opposition side of the Chamber say that people should pay their taxes but we ask why people should be hassled simply because they are successful. Why should the demands be harder on those people than on anyone else? They are the people who create the wealth in New Zealand who provide the goods and services that we enjoy and who provide the jobs that we all aspire to. It is bad enough that we are taxing them at the rate of 39c in the dollar but how bad is it if the Inland Revenue Department comes along and asks them to justify their very existence simply because in the capitalist economy that we have they have achieved some success? 
I remind the Minister of Finance that he spent something like a million dollars on the McLeod tax review in 2001. The report on the review contained a very good proposal which was that the maximum level of tax imposed on a single individual in any one year should be capped at $1 million. The ACT party says that that is a good idea. One should ask oneself whether anyone in New Zealand actually receives $1 million worth of services from this Government. Never! I ask the Minister why we do we not do as the McLeod report recommended. We should say that any fair sir or fair lady who generates sufficient income in a year to be paying more than $1 million of tax has done well and that his or her reward is to have his or her tax capped at $1 million. That is more probably than most of us will pay in a lifetime and that should be it for any person. 
Instead what happens in New Zealand is that if people are in the fortunate position of being successful not only will they pay tax at the rate of 39c in the dollar but they will be harassed and hassled by a deliberate policy of targeting people—not because they are tax dodgers and not because they have broken the rules and done something that is wrong but simply by virtue of the fact that they are successful. If we do that we will drive the bright successful people to sunnier places where their enterprise money skill and aptitude will be welcomed by the Government there. They will go somewhere where they will not be penalised with high taxes and certainly will not be hassled and harassed by a Government department. 
It is hard enough to do business in New Zealand now with the Resource Management Act the Health and Safety in Employment Act and accident compensation without the Inland Revenue Department coming down on people simply because they are successful.