Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Mr Chair. I have an amendment in my hand to save the Minister in the chair from eating humble pie. It is an amendment which seeks to split out the bill and ensure that this part which we are discussing now would be treated as its own separate issue. It is largely agreed though that this side of the House has questions and once we have used this committee of the whole House stage to thrash those out it would be entirely appropriate to conclude the debate if it were split out. So I will photocopy off some copies shortly and deliver them to members on the other side. That is the process part of my speech.I'd like to use the rest of my time to ask further questions that I have for the Minister. I did my sums as he was giving out the numbers on the amount of personal income corporate tax and goods and services tax as levied and according to my calculations over 90 percent of the total tax take would be generated by those three areas. I needed those numbers because my questions relate to whether that represents an efficient way for the Crown to levy its core revenue. My colleague Helen White has made some points around this but there are some specific questions that I have for the Minister about the agreed sort of tax principles that in New Zealand tax practitioners use to talk about how efficient our tax system is because we generally around this House all want our tax system to be efficient and to support broader economic outcomes and all taxes to some extent influence behaviour. So we want to make sure that the compliance costs are low on those who interact with the tax system and that the compliance costs in themselves are not influencing behaviour in a way that we would not predict and then the tax levies that have been set in section BB 1 of the Income Tax Act clause 3 of the bill that we are debating now do not create the wrong kinds of incentives for people.So I want to ask the Minister: given that 90 percent of the tax take is generated by those three taxes and that represents—what I presented to the Minister was $122 billion in Crown revenue but he counted $112 billion and we will ask some follow-up questions about that. But given those numbers has the Minister considered whether over 50 percent of the tax take being from personal income and 90 percent of the tax take being from those three taxes—the implications for horizontal equity within the system? What advice has the Minister considered about whether the level of horizontal equity in New Zealand's tax system is appropriate given the IMF's recent findings on that and the comparison to other OECD countries where New Zealand stands out as having a reliance on taxation on personal income?The second question within that is around the efficiency of the overall tax system. Whatever one thinks about equity within the tax system we all agree that it should be as efficient as possible and given that you probably could not describe that as the broadest base in New Zealand possible is it appropriate and is it the most efficient way of levying tax? Has the Minister considered that and what advice can he bring to the committee that he has had on that principle?The next question I have is about the vertical equity. Has the Minister considered whether the rates proposed represent the most vertically equitable way that the taxes proposed in clause 3 Part 1 are appropriately balanced against the principle of vertical equity?The next question is about whether the Minister has sought advice on the revenue integrity. This is about whether those costs of compliance that I spoke about earlier are appropriate given these new rates that are being levied.My next question is about specifically those compliance and administrative costs—whether anything will change given these new rates.My next question is about certainty and predictability. Does the way that this law is being introduced represent certainty and predictability for people who are being levied?And my last question is around the principle of flexibility and adaptability also given that the way this law is being made—has the Minister sought advice on whether it is appropriately flexible and adaptable to create the kind of tax system which works for people who are income earners and who pay GST through the goods and services that they buy within our economy? Thank you.