Bayly Andrew: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6319. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on this Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill. I think that this is a very good piece of legislation. In fact I think that this is a very smart piece of legislation and I am pleased to see that many of the Opposition parties are actually supporting it. The reasons why I believe that this is a good piece of legislation are fivefold. The first one is that—Fletcher Tabuteau: Oh goodness!ANDREW BAYLY: Yes that is right. The first reason is that this legislation reinforces the tax obligations that everyone has but that many people seem to forgetfor some reason. The issue is that when you are in the business of buying and selling houses and there is an intention test and you have a view that you want to buy and sell with the intention of making money then that is a taxable activity and it always has been in New Zealand. It is the same when you are buying and selling shares. Basically what this bill does is say that all property transactions sold within 2 years are captured by this bill unless: one the seller is selling their main home—and we can talk about the definition of that which we have expanded and have been clearer about—two the property has been inherited as part of a deceased estate or three it has been transferred as part of a matrimonial property settlement. So being absolutely clear about this is a very important component in terms of making sure that our tax system in New Zealand is robust transparent and operating very effectively.The second reason why this is a good bill is that it adds to our knowledge about the level and extent of transactions taking place in New Zealand with regard to non - New Zealand residents. I know that the Opposition has been very strong on this matter although it seems to want to apply it to everyone. So where this bill is being quite sharp and smart is that we have focused it on just the right area which is those people who are buying our properties from offshore or who are basically non-residents. What we have set in this bill is the ability for information on those transactions to be shared between the Inland Revenue Department and the Land Information office. There are two steps to it. One is the generic sharing and publicity of information which can be done on an aggregate basis and which will aid in terms of generally assessing the extent to which transactions are occurring with offshore parties. Also at a detailed level there is the ability for information to be transferred at a personal level which for tax purposes will aid in tracking people who may not want to meet their obligations. I think that this a very good thing and I believe the Opposition is very keen to see this take place as well.The third reason why this is a good bill is that it is a pragmatic piece of legislation. What we have done is exclude ordinary New Zealanders from supplying their information to the Land Information office unless they sell a house more than three times in the course of 2 years. This is where we seem to have a point of departure particularly from the Labour Party which wants to make sure that every transaction of every New Zealander is captured by this information and the excuse is that it should not take that much more work. Well the reality is that it will take a lot more work and we do not want to burden ordinary New Zealanders who want to go about buying and selling their houses without the encumbrance of all the issues that we want to impose on people who are non - New Zealanders. I think that is a fair and appropriate exclusion because at the end of the day many New Zealanders buy houses only a few times in their lifespan and we do not need to be watching and monitoring them like Big Brother.The fourth thing about this bill is that the select committee has considered carefully the implementation issues. The information is collected at the time of the conveyancing by the person responsible for managing that conveyancing. We had a number of submissions on this issue during our select committee hearings. Generally the conveyancing industry is happy with that obligation. We have been careful about the liabilities so we have made sure that the person doing the collection at the point of conveyancing is not encumbered with undue liabilities. What happens is that we have got a professional independent party collecting the information which is then supplied to the Land Information office.Finally the fifth reason why this is a good piece of legislation is that it meets our international obligations—principally relating to money-laundering. For all those reasons I believe that this is a bill that we should be supporting and that it is a good piece of legislation. No doubt when we talk about the next piece of legislation to be introduced into the House regarding brightline tests this is going to be a composite package to deal with this issue. Thank you very much.