Cunliffe David: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11743. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn):Kia ora Mr Chair.Hon Trevor Mallard: You’re meant to be listening for someone to seek the call not looking.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Mr Chair can look and listen Mr Mallard which is a wonderful thing that we have such a—well yes it is too late in the week to think of long “p” words. But anyway congratulations Mr Chairman. Thank you very much.Here we are in the Committee stage of the very famous Taxation (Livestock Valuation Assets Expenditure and Remedial Matters) Bill. I see that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration is smiling. That could be because he is about to be advised by the Hon Trevor Mallard which will be of great assistance to his career no doubt or it may be that it has dawned on him that he is not the Minister of Revenue. That as you will see is very lucky for him because what is so important about Part 1 is not exactly what is in it but what is not in it—what is not in it. What is not in it is the famous car-park tax. It was not long ago Mr Chairman ladies and gentlemen and colleagues that National introduced what has now got to be one of the most infamous tax ideas that this House has ever seen: the idea that you would place fringe benefit tax on the personal use of a company car-park but only if you are in the central businessdistricts not a street away and only if it was in Wellington or Auckland not Hamilton Rotorua Taupō Tauranga or anywhere else around the country.Hon Lianne Dalziel: There aren’t any parking buildings in Christchurch.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: And there are no parking buildings left in Christchurch the “Minister for Earthquake Removal” tells me.Hon Lianne Dalziel: Removal?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Well I am just saying that in honour of the Christchurch City Council having knocked down all the buildings that it has attempted to consent over the last year. Well done Bob Parker. That reminds me that we are talking about car-parker tax and this has been withdrawn. It has been withdrawn because it was going to cost according to some independent accounting estimates $2 to collect for every $1 it raised.Dr David Clark: How much?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: How did that one—$2 to collect for every $1 it raised—get past the goalie at the Inland Revenue Department quality control centre? That is what I want to know. But even if it got past the goal line in the boffin building what happened in the Minister’s office? What happened in—it was then the Hon Peter Dunne Minister of Revenue; we have had musical chairs in the hot seat since then—his office? Where was the political advice? Minister this is a dog and it barketh. Actually that is a bit tactless. I apologise. We should not be talking about dogs because Todd McClay the Minister of Revenue is also trying to poison them all for psychoactive substances—Hon Trevor Mallard: The drug dealers.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —and to make drug dealers rich but we are not going to go there. That is not a tax matter Mr Mallard. It may be an animal rights outrage but it is not a tax matter. So finally common sense prevailed and the car-park tax was withdrawn under the steely hoofs of an unlikely combination of Matthew Hooton and the Council of Trade Unions. Matthew Hooton and the Council of Trade Unions joined forces to stampede the Minister of Revenue—aided and abetted by the loyal Labour Party trying to stand up for truth justice and the Kiwi way—and bang there goes the car-park tax.What is also not in Part 1 of this bill are three now four other stupid tax proposals of a similar ilk. Last week when we were doing the first reading of the bill I was able to report to the House on three equally idiotic taxes and since then the Government has taken notice of our advice. I am pleased to report that a new one has emerged. In fact the fourth extra-stupid tax other than the car-park tax came out in the public domain in the same week. Fringe benefit tax is now to be applied to—wait for it—the clothing allowance of plain-clothes policemen. Not only that as if it is not bad enough to penalise the hard-working cops risking life and limb it gives new meaning to “the emperor’s got no clothes”—the emperor’s new clothes; the bobby’s new clothes. As if it was not bad enough to impose a punitive tax on the poor near-naked bobby—I mean the phrase “bobby on the street” now has extra meaning does it not—this was done retrospectively. [Bell rung ] Mr Chairman I have to complete this story. This was done—Hon Trevor Mallard: Sounds like the naked truth to me.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: The naked truth is that not only has the Government imposed yet another stupid tax on the public but it has done so retrospectively. Why? Was it that if it did it prospectively people would stop it before this outrage got across the line? Why would the Government commit the double sin of stupidity retrospectively? Let us hope that good sense will prevail and that our poor near-naked undercover police will once again be clothed so that if they are not shot to death theywill not freeze to death. I do not want to make light of what is often a high-risk situation and their clothing allowance is there for good reason.Let us recall the three other stupid taxes currently at issue none of which appear in Part 1 of the bill we are discussing today but which are relevant because they are akin to the one that was in Part 1 of this bill. They are the iPad tax where the Government was going to charge everybody fringe benefit tax on the private use of their iPhones iPads and other electronic communications. You are going to have to go through your phone bill and apportion your data charges and work out which calls were work calls and which were private calls and pay tax on the private ones. Does not that sound like a really good idea? Imagine the time spent on that. Imagine the red tape. How did that one get past the goalie?But if it was not bad enough that that got in the Inland Revenue Department’s discussion document the Government at the self-same time gave up on taxing Apple the people who make the iPads that the Government was going to charge you the public extra fringe benefit tax to use. Apple pays only about 1 percent tax on its profits in New Zealand. Why is that? Because apparently it does not make any money because that is part of a bigger problem called—technical term—base erosion and profit-shifting which is a matter that the OECD is looking at but which the Government has done sweet nothing about. Why not? Because it is too busy retrospectively applying a clothing tax on cops and poisoning poodles. It is ridiculous.The Minister is obviously overworked. All right? Hopefully if he does not do too well in this life there may be redemption in the next but it is unlikely because he is also imposing a punitive tax on clergy—grossing up the value of church housing and then imposing fringe benefit tax on an income that is not even earned by clergymen so that the Government can charge fringe benefit tax on clergy housing. This is ridiculous. What is systemically wrong at the Inland Revenue Department that it keeps coming up with these stupid stupid crazy ideas? I am hopeful that the Minister will stop that one.But in honour of the Hon Lianne Dalziel the Opposition spokesperson on earthquake recovery and we hope soon to be the Mayor of Christchurch—I just want to say that again; soon to be the Mayor of Christchurch because poor old Bob Parker is not having a good week down there—I say that she has brought to my attention the problem of the accommodation tax. This is the fringe benefit tax being applied on temporary accommodation used for over a year. Christchurch is full of temporary accommodation and it is expensive enough to live there now or stay there if you are part of the rebuild but the Inland Revenue Department wants to impose personal fringe benefit tax on anyone lucky enough to live in a shipping container in Bexley. This is madness. What is going on at the Inland Revenue Department? What is going on in the Minister’s offices? Where do these crazy ideas come from and how did they get into Part 1 of this bill?The only good thing one can say about this bill is that David Bennett has had a road to Damascus experience. David Bennett the member for Waikato-something thinks Damascus is between Tīrau and Pūtāruru but it is not.Tim Macindoe: No it’s between Parnell and Herne Bay.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Touché. He has had a road to Damascus experience. After 55 years of helping farmers rort their taxes he has now recanted and decided that he is going to find absolution by ratting on his former clients and he has dobbed them in by putting some livestock valuation rules in this bill. Thank you.