Nash Stuart: Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Nash Stuart: Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6642] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I say to Mr Lotu-Iiga that I wish we could get one thing clarified. First and foremost the Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill was introduced by the previous Labour Government on 2 July 2008. It is not a National bill; it was not part of National’s agenda for tax reform. I think we need to get that clear once and for all. 
The Minister in the chair the Hon Peter Dunne is right; this bill has had quite a long process. As I have mentioned it was introduced on 2 July last year. The reason it has taken so long is perhaps that Parliament dissolved for the general election and then we were back into it. But having said that I also understand the need for urgency on the bill because business tends to operate best in an environment of certainty. The sooner this bill is passed the greater the level of certainty there will be for a whole range of businesses. So I support the urgency on this bill in the Chamber today. 
As has been mentioned we support this bill. We have already voiced our concern—I think every speaker has voiced his or her concern—not about the rushed process but about the size of the bill coupled with the amount of time we had to spend on it. We are concerned about—and my colleague David Cunliffe talked about this—the late nature of the Supplementary Order Papers which were tabled without sufficient time to properly consider them. Supplementary Order Papers 34 and 35 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne were released on 4 August and 25 August respectively. This is a huge and complex bill—most tax legislation is complex—but at 825-odd pages that really made things very tight. There was a general lack of sufficient time to fully consider the whole immense detail of the bill but we did our best. As has been mentioned we relied on the officials and our consultants. 
I will talk about the amendments to the Income Tax Act. In 2007 around 3500 pages of New Zealand tax legislation were enacted. This legislation included the Income Tax Act of 2007. At 2800-odd pages that Act represents the fourth and final stage of a project begun in 1994 to rewrite income tax law in plain-language style. As the length of time taken to complete this task shows this rewrite was an ambitious and aspirational but absolutely necessary task. I know that sometimes the words “tax legislation” and “plain English” in the same sentence are a bit of an oxymoron but this is the way things work out in tax legislation. This task was a definite step forward in terms of New Zealand tax law. But as an inevitable consequence of the rewriting process there was a temporary but large increase in the number of remedial amendments necessary in order to maintain the tax law in sound working order. This increase was in part because very few remedial amendments had been enacted since December 2007. 
Of the remedial amendments proposed approximately 115 are typically of a very minor nature. They are intended to correct matters such as incorrect numbering and cross-referencing printing errors the use of incorrect terminology punctuation issues and omitted words. Despite perceptions and beliefs to the contrary even tax officials and drafters make the occasional mistake. I think we would agree that making 115 drafting errors in 3500 pages of legislation or in the 2800-odd pages of the Income Tax Act 2007 is not a bad effort overall. Other amendments in this bill are of a less clerical nature but arise from both rewrite issues include submissions to the Rewrite Advisory Panel and from clarification of policy in business as usual drafting. These 160-odd amendments affect provisions in the Income Tax Act 2007 the Income Tax Act 2004 the Tax Administration Act 1994 the KiwiSaver Act 2006 as the Minister has alluded to and the Stamp and Cheque Duties Act amongst other Acts. Of these amendments 30 issues were referred to the Rewrite Advisory Panel for resolution. 
In addition to the 119 remedial amendments included in the bill at its introduction the officials recommended that the Finance and Expenditure Committee propose the inclusion of about 150 further remedial amendments the need for which had been discovered since the introduction of this bill. As that shows a lot of work went into this legislation at the officials level at the Finance and Expenditure Committee level and at the consultant and advisory level. 
Several Acts that amend tax Acts have been enacted since the bill was introduced to Parliament. They include the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Act 2008 the Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Act 2008 and the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Act 2009. A number of the cross-references in the bill need to be adjusted to take into account the changes made by those Acts. The officials recommended that the committee include such amendments.