Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to the Taxation (KiwiSaver Student Loans and Remedial Matters) Bill.There are parts of this bill that are well worthwhile it has to be said. There are areas where the bill allows greater use of better electronics and databases by the Inland Revenue Department. It allows the modernisation of tax compliance. While that does create problems for some people who feel left behind by technological change it also means that New Zealand and its taxation system are moving forward to a more efficient and more productive future. That is well and good. There are also changes being made to KiwiSaver that as the previous speaker Nicola Willis explained very well will make that scheme a more accommodating and compassionate scheme—once again much better for New Zealand.But I oppose this bill on behalf of ACT because unfortunately all of those changes are ultimately putting a band-aid on a huge problem. The problem is that our taxation system—while the introductory statement on this bill talked about maintaining our broad based-low rate taxation system the truth is that we have a tax system that is vastly more complex than it needs to be and the costs of that are threefold. First of all by having four different rates of taxation and a different company rate—that's five rates and the same rate for trusts—we spend most of our time in the Finance and Expenditure Committee trying to design rules to try to stop people from shifting income between different tax years and different entities to minimise their taxation. That is the administrative and compliance costs on the part of the Government and the taxpayer respectively that we impose on this country as a Parliament by maintaining a system with four different tax rates on income for individuals and a fifth rate for companies. It needn't be so.The second cost that is imposed by this overly complex taxation system is that we send a message that can be best summed up as tall-poppy syndrome in the tax code. We tell children in New Zealand to work hard pay attention in school do their homework get qualified be diligent and be nice in order that they can earn more money. And then this Parliament turns around and says that the consequence of that when it comes to taxation is that if you start earning more your tax rate on income will be more than tripled from 10.5 percent at the bottom to 33 percent at the top. The contradictory message that this Parliament sends to New Zealand with an overly complex taxation system is a cost that we will never be able to estimate but we know it's large.The third cost that this five-rate taxation system imposes is that it makes us uncompetitive as a country. New Zealand is now the most highly taxed nation in the Asia-Pacific region. I know members on the left wing of politics love to compare us with low-growth economies in Europe—then we don't look so bad. But in the Asia-Pacific region where New Zealand belongs we have the highest amount of tax relative to the rest of our economy of any other country.So this Parliament is doing well by introducing some modernisation measures some digitisation and a little bit more compassion in KiwiSaver. That is laudable. But we are failing to address the real issue of an overly complex structure of tax that has three major costs for New Zealanders and makes us all the poorer. That's why the ACT Party opposes this bill because we need to do better. Thank you Madam Speaker.