Robertson Grant: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax GST on Online Services and Student Loans) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10420. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Actually you normally say—anyway. I do want to take a call on clauses 1 and 2 the title and commencement clauses. Firstly to deal with the commencement issues—as is fairly typical in taxation legislation there are a number of commencement dates. I think it is important for the Committee whenever it is debating these clauses that it does take note of retrospective commencement dates because they are not the best things to have. It is not really the way Parliament should behave. I could now do Chris Hipkins’ speech on retrospectivity which he often gives when there are commencement clauses but suffice it to say that the idea that Parliament has the power to be able to retrospectively change people’s obligations and the rules under which we operate in the taxation system is one to be judiciously put in place.I do want to point out clause 6 of the bill which has a retrospective element in terms of the right to cancel a loan contract. That is in fact an empowering part of the bill in that it allows an action by a borrower to be able to do that and so I do not think anyone here in the Committee would have any particular problem with that.Clause 6 relates to an issue that is going to come up in another taxation bill which is the great debate about the difference between notifying and formally notifying which the Finance and Expenditure Committee somehow managed to spend a significant amount of time discussing. Is there in fact a difference between notifying somebody of something and formally notifying them of something? Once upon a time formal notification would come from writing—putting something in a letter and sending a letter. But is an email formal notification? Because it is like a letter—[Interruption] Yes but is it seen to be a formal communication? I think the general consensus was that that needed to be clarified and that actually is where clause 6 came from which actually changes the words from “formally notifying the loan manager” to “notifying the loan manager in writing”. So now we are absolutely clear: it is in writing and that can also be an email as well for those who are following along at home.The other retrospective clause is a very minor one which I have now completely forgotten—clause 37B that is right. That is not a major issue but it relates to the question around when someone has acquired land under the residential land withholding tax issue. The other clauses are largely coming in in the future. There are clauses 37 and 37C which again are around the issues of definitions of residential land and disposal within the 2 years of the brightline test—changing the phrase “in land” to “in residential land”. My colleague Stuart Nash earlier identified why that was changed.This of course is another example of us having to tidy up legislation. The reason it has a retrospective commencement date is that we are having to tidy up the law that was passed in 2015—that is clause 37 which is dealt with in the commencement clause at clause 2(4). Otherwise the majority of the clauses come into force later this year or in 2017.In the remainder of this contribution I do just want to refer to the title because as I have mentioned in previous tax bill debates often quite innocuous or very general words are used. In this bill’s title we have some specific ones here: “Residential Land Withholding Tax”—good; a new thing being introduced—the “GST on Online Services” and the randomly stated “Student Loans”. I am a fan of perhaps more specific wording in these types of bills so that people have a better idea of what we are debating.But more to the point there is clearly for me some words missing from this title. It would be remiss of me given the contributions I have made on this bill thus far to not say that the words “Missed Opportunity” should be in the title because actually that is what this bill is about. It is about the fact that the Government yet again has a tax bill it could have brought to the House to make some real and significant changes.The biggest missed opportunity of all is in the GST on online services aspect of this bill because this was the bit where the Government could have stood alongside small businesses in New Zealand and said: “We get it that you’re doing it tough. We’re going to level out the playing field in GST. There will be a process and a pathway towards GST being charged at a decent rate in terms of tangible goods brought in from overseas.” But that did not happen and that is a missed opportunity in this bill.There are other missed opportunities—