Coates BarryBARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koutou e ngā mema Pāremata. I rise to speak about the tax bill.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call.BARRY COATES: The Green Party supports this bill. We do so with considerable reservations and I wanted to introduce why we have concerns. A large part of this tax bill is in response to the issue of foreign trusts. Foreign trusts from our perspective are a part of our business dealings that should never have happened. New Zealand's reputation as has been previously pointed out by colleagues like Russell Norman over a period of years and by the IRD has been sullied by foreign trusts. We have been widely regarded as a country that has provided a haven for hot money that is evading tax. We have been regarded as a place where organised crime and drug money could be laundered. I think this is the kind of business that New Zealand should not have been encouraging.To the extent that this bill is remedying some basic rules around foreign trusts we support it. However we do not think it goes far enough. For example one of the issues is the degree of transparency that is provided for in this bill. Transparency is the antidote to this kind of hot money and the evasion from tax and other forms of international regulation. Unfortunately the device—the mechanism—that is included in this bill for foreign trusts is a register that is limited in its transparency. By comparison if we look at the register of companies or the register of trusts in New Zealand for example what we see is that you can search these registers as a member of the public. However this piece of legislation as currently drafted does not include that transparency. There is an insufficient basis for being able to understand what these foreign trusts are doing in New Zealand. I think that is a huge missed opportunity with regard to this bill. We need to crack down on tax havens.As pointed out in the Shewan report we also need to crack down on money laundering. We have been waiting for phase two of the anti - money-laundering provisions which have not been included in this legislation. We have known for a long time about multinational companies that are able to evade New Zealand taxes while wage and salary earners bear the brunt of paying taxes in our country. Multinationals get away with being able to use transfer pricing to transfer their profits to countries where they pay little or no taxes and then they compete unfairly with New Zealand companies. They put the burden of tax on most New Zealanders. That is wrong. This bill should have included a far more comprehensive closure of tax loopholes.There are however some elements of this bill that we support. There is a simplification of tax that helps small and medium sized enterprises. There is a pay-as-you-go provision for tax which is good for cash flow for small and medium sized enterprises and that is good for New Zealand business. Small companies need that—cash flow is king—and they need these changes in this legislation. It is why we have decided to support this bill. We think that it is a step in the right direction. The Government needs to be accountable for taking the next steps and doing it urgently so that New Zealand can become a place to do business that we are proud of not where we hang our heads in shame. Thank you.