Williams Andrew: Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:10993. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First and we also congratulate the new Minister of Revenue the Hon Todd McClay the former chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee who is now taking up where the Hon Peter Dunne left off. In this respect New Zealand First also supports the Taxation (Annual Rates Foreign Superannuation and Remedial Matters) Bill. There is a lot of good sensible sound policy in this bill that will help tidy up aspects of our taxation system and simplify areas of filing requirements for individuals and record-keeping requirements for businesses. It will also provide that taxpayers who choose to file a tax return also need to file their returns from the previous 4 tax years so they cannot basically cherry-pick a particular year. If they are going to file a tax return it must also include the tax returns of the previous 4 years to ensure that it is fully covered.We are pleased that the Government has seen fit to move in the direction of KiwiSaver to increase employer contributions and employee contributions back up from 2 to 3 per cent which we believe is again a positive thing for long-term savings in this country. We were very disappointed when the Government reduced its own contribution in July 2011. It reduced the annual Government contribution halving it from $1042 or $20 a week down to $521 or $10 a week. We thought that was a negative way of addressing the problem of savings in this country. The Government reducing its contribution to KiwiSaver did send the wrong message.Just recently I was reading—I do not have the figures in front of me—that the impact on that KiwiSaver fund in the next 10 to 20 years as a result of the reductions of the Government contribution is into the tens of billions of dollars that New Zealanders will not have in the long term and that is a great shame. It is a great shame that the Government could see fit to give $2 billion in tax cuts to its wealthy rich mates and could provide $2 billion in tax cuts for those who do not need it—$5000 a week in tax cuts for the likes of Paul Reynolds the head of Telecom; $1000 a week for the likes of John Key; and goodness knows how many other thousands of dollars a week for very wealthy people in this country who simply did not need it. Those tax cuts gave them the opportunity to buy a new boat at Westhaven and that sort of thing or a new bach at Ōmaha but for the people who actually could have done with tax cuts and could have done with the ongoing significant contribution to their KiwiSaver schemes it was a pity that the Government had its priorities wrong and saw fit to take $2 billion out of the tax revenue coffers to give to the wealthy while reducing the KiwiSaver contributions.It is also interesting that in this bill it talks about taxing bonus shares issued by companies under profit distribution plans. Is that not interesting? I wonder whether that would include Mighty River Power bonus scheme shares because it almost seems like the Government is putting out the little carrot putting out the tempter for people to buy Mighty River Power shares and saying: “If you keep them for 2 years you will get”—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Just after the election.ANDREW WILLIAMS: —yes that is just after the election—“a bonus just after the election next year in your shares of Mighty River Power.” But here in this bill it says that it will be taxing bonus shares issued by companies under profit distribution plans. So it is bad news for New Zealanders. You have not been given the full story it would seem by this Government because it is giving with one hand while at the same time it is ripping your other hand off with the other.It will be very interesting if the Government makes a little bit more of a feature of this when it tries to launch the Meridian Energy shares with a similar bonus scheme. Will it be telling the people of New Zealand when it tries to sell off Meridian Energy: “Oh by the way the bonus shares come with a little bit of a tag to them—that you will get taxed on those as well.”? It is clear here that the Government does not always necessarily tell the full truth but we have understood that in the last week on many other issues as well.One of the areas where New Zealand First is in support is where the bill talks about foreign superannuation and different tax regimes around the world and assisting people to bring their superannuation back to New Zealand. In this respect this lines up very nicely with New Zealand First’s superannuation policy which we put out in just the last month or so in relation to keeping the superannuation age at 65 years. Some parties in this House would see the superannuation age sliding up to 67 or an even greater age than that in the future while others would keep it at 65 as long as the current Prime Minister is at the helm. Once he is gone from the helm I am sure that Steven Joyce Judith Collins and Bill English will be just chomping at the bit to move the age out to 67 or higher in order to try to balance the books.In that respect the New Zealand First policy—and we have put it out this month—is that we would have a graduated superannuation scheme based on the length of time a person has been living and working in New Zealand. If a person has in the 45 years between the ages of 20 and 65 lived and worked in this country—and when I say “worked” that could include non-paid work in terms of a spouse a husband or wife taking care of the family; they are still contributing in a non-paid situation—for the full 45 years then under the policy of New Zealand First at age 65 you would get 100 percent of the universal superannuation. However if you have been out of the country for a period of that time you would get that percentage of time taken off your superannuation payment. Perhaps you had worked overseas for 10 years. You would then get 10 years taken off the 45 years and therefore you would get 10/45ths taken off your superannuation when turning 65.What this also means is that where we have a lot of repatriation of people coming back to New Zealand who have worked a huge amount of their time overseas and have contributed very little in the way of tax to New Zealand they will not come back and just get on the bandwagon and take the hard-earned taxes that all those people who have been in this country and who have worked most of their lives in this country have contributed to the scheme. Similarly those who come to join their family when in their senior years of life who arrive here and stay the minimum requirement of 10 years would not then suddenly get the full 100 percent of superannuation either. If they have come here and had 10 years in this country then they would get 10/45ths of the superannuation for themselves. They would not get the full 45/45ths of superannuation. Therefore they would get some form of payment but they would not be stepping over the New Zealanders who have contributed all their lives to the scheme.In that respect that fits in with this bill because we would also permit them to transfer and bring back to New Zealand their own superannuation from schemes that they may have been paying into overseas. They could therefore keep the payment from their scheme plus take a percentage from the New Zealand scheme on the basis of the years that they have been in this country. We believe that that is a very sound and solid policy which New Zealand First will be pushing and will certainly be pushing into the next election. It will mean that New Zealanders will be able to keep a superannuation scheme at age 65 going on for many many decades to come whereas under the current situation that is looking increasingly perilous while the New Zealand tax base does not have a bright future in many areas.In closing New Zealand First supports this bill. We believe that much of this bill is very much technical. Much of it is just tightening up loopholes. It does improve the tax system in a great many areas. New Zealand First has always said in this House that we will support good sound solid policy and we will oppose bad policy. In that respect there is good policy in this bill and New Zealand First will be supporting it.