I am interested in the effect on wages of the UBI. Does it follow that we will then be able to justify reduction or removal of minimum wages? If so, then it will expand opportunities for industry and there fore increase employment, Increased tax take and eventually allowing for a higher UBI? Is this a realistic outcome ? Through effectively subsidizing local industry could it take pressure off imports and even foster export industries, resolving our balance of trade issues? Once again is this likely? Finally have you attempted to put a value on the cost savings of removing the infrastructure involved in administering all the different benefits? Surely this would be significant compared to simply paying a UBI.

What do you think about Herman Cain's "flat tax rate on everything" idea?

E.g. applied to NZ, GST would be 10%, income tax (on ALL types of income, including capital gains, interest in the bank, etc) would be 10%, business tax 10%...

Alternatively, what if you had a progressive "tax rate on all income," i.e. the current progressive tax system applied to the total of all your annual income (including profits from capital etc)?

The following parameters result in a Shortfall of 0, as calculated by Minister of Finance calculator.

Flat rate = 35%
GST = 17.5%
UBI age 18-69 = $11,000 (same as in BK)
UBI per child = $8500
UBI age 70+ = $13,600
Minimum rate of return on capital = 6% (same as in BK)

When a couple turn 70, their UBI rises by 2 x (13.6 - 11) = $5200. This amount is the CCT on a house worth 5.2/(0.35 x 0.06) = 248K. Hence the rise in the UBI in old age will, in many cases, be entirely clawed back by the Crown via the CCT.

If , as I believe, you should earn what you deserve and be taxed according to your needs, there should be allowances built into any tax system for the number of people a wage earner supports, whether it be a partner caring for the children, the children themselves , a disabled brother, an aging parent, a non earning student son.If every man woman and child had a tax free allowance the person supporting them should be able to claim their allowance as well as his /her own personal allowance. Yes the earner would have to prove that they were supporting the dependent but that is not too difficult via bank records
I agree there are many inequities in the present system and it needs a ground swell of opinion to lead to change.

In reading through the information on this website I am almost convinced this is a sensible thing to do. I very much believe in having tax and welfare systems that are simple to administer and fair and this certainly seems to be those two things. There is one thing that I can't get my head around and that is: who will own all the houses (especially rental properties) if incentives to invest in housing are removed (i.e through the CCT). Wouldn't rents skyrocket, as landlords would need to ensure they make a good return on their investment if they can no longer reduce their tax burden through investment property losses?

The Big Kahuna this is SO GREAT! - a homegrown kiwi response to the global crisis. I believe that a universal basic income for all citizens will free our society and enable individuals to take on risks/challenges that are necessary for development of our communities.

Much more volunteer work, neighbourhood charity, and part-time employment as free agents will strengthen families and communities. This will do much more to develop self-reliance compared to the current punitive welfare system. WAKE UP KIWIS this is the WAY FORWARD. Thanks Gareth and your support team!

Note: Interview this morning 5 Nov Kim Hill Radio NZ with Dr. Ravi Batra the author of "The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos"

After years in the Public Service and now in my mid-50's I have been on the unemployment benefit for two years now. I live in a remote community in the Urewera and far from being idle i am generally pretty busy on unpaid community work and such. My experience of the whole WINZ process has not been good. It is a demeaning process where you are routinely accussed of being a malingerer.
This kind of economic model appeals to me. Is it getting any traction with political parties?

Love your work—heroic!

According to the 2007 Local Government Rates Inquiry, local government rates amount to less than 6% of the total government revenue.

Have you modelled the effect of dispensing with local government rates and collecting that revenue through your proposed capital tax and flat rate income tax?

There is at present interesting talk featured on www.ted.com by a Richard Wilkinson that looks across international data at a range of wellbeing measures and how they relate to both absolute income and relative income. It surprised me how badly New Zealand fares. His analysis does add a lot of support to the value of an approach like UBI in creating better societies. See - Richard Wilkinson: How econonomic inequality harms societies.
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

I like this, a lot.

My question relates to GST. It's evaluated as a regressive tax in your book, and the proposals in general steer away from regressive taxes - but I only saw one line to the effect that there was no need to get rid of it, rather than an actual justification.

Why does it need to stay? Just to keep the flat tax low enough?

I also have my doubts about excluding non-land/building personal assets, such as cars and other valuables, though I acknowledge extra difficulty in extracting tax from them.

With intellectual property (which I mostly disagree with conceptually anyway), can one just make some declaration that makes it unable to earn income (or allow anyone to earn income off it equally), and be free of the tax? I'm thinking of declaring a work to be Public Domain, or under a free software licence (http://www.fsf.org/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source).

What a disaster this tax and welfare policy would be - A solo father looking after a disabled son who is not able to work full time would not have even enough income with the UBI of $11,000 to pay the rent. All the low income people will be living on the street and the social upheaval will be massive. You will have to employee guards to protect your mansions....
Being a solo father I would welcome the opportunity to work and earn an income that would provide my family a future. I hate being on a benefit as it is a trap in poverty. However you need to concentrate making jobs available as well as having a UBI that reflects the real cost of living

1. So what happens around the fact valuations for homes are highly subjective unlike taxing actual income/interest? I have just had two registered valuations done for some land that are 23% apart. What say your house value was put at $700,000, you have no mortgage so paid the annual tax each year of $12,600 for some years, but then when you sell the house goodness me you only receive $600,000? How do you get that corrected as the golden rule is Property Value is always only what a willing purchaser will pay?

2. I also hate the idea that as a serious gardener who does it as a hobby I could actually add value to my house (not the primary intention) so add to my annual tax bill, it feels like a disincentive to beautify my surroundings and support ecology. We are also beautifying a public domain near us - have fund raised to flip the land, done weed control and planting native trees to support birdlife - it will be worth more money but that is not the target (and no singular person(s) benefits). How will the huge tax burden that will be placed on Government (Doc land, parks, public buildings and domains) be funded?

Keep up the good work. You are putting into words a concept I have held in my mind for 40 years. I so hope we will see NZ move towards adopting your proposals.

Thank you for your wisdom regarding tax and welfare. I live on a benefit of 190.00 a week. I have applied for about 200 jobs in the last two years. A real eye opener re who gets the jobs and how in NZ - "more qualifications = better jobs" - what a set-up that has been! I have a degree and two postgraduate degrees and great skills - and I'm sure there are more like me who can't secure any work, let alone satisfying work. I, like many of my friends who on benefits with and without degrees do want work. I've taken to volunteer work in a big way - and I have to say I feel really good most of the time [take elders to shopping, cuppa tea etc]. The UBI is an excellent idea for people like us - and it should give most people a little more security while they are seeking work, especially because it excludes the ambiguous but stressful coercion from some Work and Income staff [who are also on crap wages!], which just makes a person feel terrible, tired, insecure. Thanks for your mature thinking - progressive and straight-up. I'm notr a big fan of capitalism and harsh competition, but there must be a fairer way to do it, at least until we all grow up and start to seriously work together a lot more - see the value of the simple things in life etc. Cheers,

Mr Grant and other people who believe low paid, low skilled workers are not important to the NZ economy need to take a stroll through our dairy farms, orchards and pack-houses. The back-breaking, dirty, noisy work and long hours done for minimum wages, often in the freezing cold and very often with sub-standard living conditions is essential to our economy. People seem to have lost touch with what goes on in the country-side as well as with what drives our economy.
Spend a week living and working with the average dairy farm worker or pack house worker or orchard pruner and then see what you have to say Mr Grant.

I have found your proposals very sensible.
However I would like your comments on the following which I recently sent to all MP's. 3 replies all missed the point.

There has been discussion about introducing a Capital Gains Tax [CGT]. I wish to point out that the present tax on interest from savings is effectively a CGT. That is when I invest savings from my income (already taxed) in an interest bearing account the tax on this is taxing the gain on my capital.
However since there is no allowance for inflation when applying this tax it is very unfair because often there is no capital gain and recently even a loss of capital. Taking the recently announced 5.3% inflation rate for every $1000 I have in a bank account at 3.5% I am losing
$18 ($1053 - $1035 = $18) AND then if I am taxed 20% on the $35 interest I only gain $28 ($35 interest - $7 tax) which means I have lost $25 for every $1000 of my capital ($53 - $28).

IS THE TAX ON INTEREST FAIR? Especially when, for those on low incomes, the inflation rate on necessities like food is up to 10%. Where is the incentive to save?

I had a play with the finance minister calculator.

I like these figures the most

flat tax 47.5%
GST 15%
Capital 7%

UBI (child) $5200
UBI (youth/senior) $15600
UBI (work aged adult) $18200

Just wondering what problems this might cause/solve. What do you think?

The ideas are great and seem workable, so hope you are successful promoting the scheme. However, like most people, we'd like to know how it would affect us personally.

Here's a scenario that I don't think has been covered in Q&A:

Couple aged 55 & 62, own home, no mortgage. We worked to be mortgage free quite young so we'd have the freedom to have "lifestyle jobs" from which we earn about $30,000pa between us. We have a bit in savings and shares. Your scheme would make us better off now by about $10000. But true retirement is approaching so I'm not sure that we have enough already saved to maintain a similar income during retirement i.e. if we stop earning the extra $30,000. We'd still have the same CCT to pay and on the current low income there wouldn't be enough time to save much more. And we'd probably fall outside the time-frame for the top-up you propose for current retirees. Hard to downsize as our property value is pretty low already.

I know this probably would never affect us as at least one of us is likely to be already retired by the time the system is implemented.
However, how will it affect people who may want to follow the same path in future - i.e. pay off mortgage on a modest house by around 40, save a bit, earn enough part-time to live a decent, enjoyable but not flamboyant life. Wouldn't the CCT/interest scenario be a disincentive to paying off the mortgage early?

Thanks
Heather

I only bought the book yesterday and have read only your proposals so far. Very, very interesting and hearty congratulations. I would never label your solutions as left or right. That simplistic view must be assigned to the rubbish bin of the past. I personally favour a tax system which taxes unearned income rather than earned income. It is so much more logical and just.

I have been reading a lot on land value taxes and prefer this to taxing the capital value of a property (it doesn't then penalise you if you add improvements to a property). It is also simpler to administer. Nobody can hide land or send it offshore!

Land value taxes are favoured now by the ALTER group within the Libdems in UK and also by Scottish Greens. The philosophy is that the earth's resources are our commons and anyone who uses the commons should pay regular rent to society. I personally would favour reductions for landholders who already serve the public like heritage buildings and those with conservation blocks on their land.

I am very interested in your suggestion that property owners with mortgages share the CCT with the lender. This has huge implications for banks. What do you think the banks' response would be? To raise interest rates and pass on their costs? I may have missed something and apologise if you have already answered this.

It's great to hear positive publicity for your 'The Big Kahuna' idea and book. I think it is very timely that you have come out with it now. Obviously Labour's capital gains tax is another version but nowhere near as comprehensive.
I am interested in some of the details like whether to include children at one end and Superannuitants at the other. I believe the more comprehensive the better.
In a recent 'Stuff' article (see link below) the cost of raising a child under 18 came out at between $10 000- $14 000 p.a. depending on who ran the figures.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/5674787/How-much-do-kids-cost
So my feeling would be yes, include children from birth.
The current rates of National Super vary up to $20 235 gross p.a. for a single person living alone. These folk are going to feel very hard-done by if they are asked to accept $11 000 p.a.
This leads me to think that you need to propose as high a rate as possible so as to create buy-in from people. No-one is going to want to have a reduction in income, and anyway, over the years inflation will eat away at the value of the payments. Government will be able to reap large savings dismantling the bureaucracies that perpetuate the current byzantine system so these savings can partially offset the higher initial payments.

I have many criticisms of the Big Kahuna scheme, but for starters: If I buy a house, whatever my equity, I have already paid tax on the money used to buy it. If the house rises in value it does so in parrallel with inflation, so I actually make no gain, so why should I pay tax? Alternatively you proposal would have Kiwis paying tax on their houses in times of recession when houses were actually losing value on their original cost.

As to the UBI, many people have already shown that, given a basic income (welfare), they choose not to work. UBI would dramatically increase numbers of those people . If it was such a success in Canada, why didn't they keep it going?

Hi

I thank you for your work and no doubt you are right...

You infuriate me though because in the Herald article I struggled for a long time to find out what a UBI is....why the hell don't you say ????...so i think if Mr Grant misunderstood you its prolly because you don't explain things very well. No doubt your fault, I expect....

Would you consider testing your writing out on a person who is not part of your own circle, to see if they can understand you, otherwise you are only going to be preaching to the converted
Cheers

roy....royjohnharvey@gmail.com

Have just finished your book,its sound pretty good to me. We all have a moral obligation to society.

There appears to be an assumption that individuals (chpt 9) make rational (economics) decisions. This is not always so. Also in chpt 9 has a discussion on insurance, I can see this leading to the problem of moral hazards.
have you any solutions for these issues.

When I, at every given chance, try to discuss a UBI (as I have for many years) with friends and colleagues,both left leaning and conservative, I get howled down with you cant give people something for nothing (conservative) and a progressive tax is the only fair way to redistribute (left leaning).
Do these numbers work – $15,000.00 pa UBI with flat 33% tax ? I'm thinking if they do there's more chance of public buy in/acceptance for the idea. Also, 300.00 per week gives a far greater chance for innovation from the freedom, improved esteem for being valued etc etc that low income earners will gain. Superannuitants will feel less miffed too.

Hi guys,
I really love this policy, and there is an election looming. Is any party getting close to adopting The Big Kahuna as part of it's policy platform? If so they have my vote!
Best.
Peter

The first mistake your book makes is thinking that people want to have their hard earned income "redistributed" (actually stolen if you use the right term)to others that usually don't deserve it. This of course takes away the incentive for most of us to earn more and therefore productivity deceases, as it did under labour who introduced bigger "progressive" taxes and higher welfare. This kind of socialism is evil, has been tried before and has always failed. Greece is prime example of this.

I have long believed in a tax system which gives everyone a basic tax free allowance but your CCT proposal would be punitive for those on a fixed income and with a mortgage free house - especially retirees. Wouldn't your plan discourage people from paying off their mortgage as interest costs are deductable?

Gareth
I think that your underlying philosophy, the need to reduce the income gap in New Zealand, is not just common sense, but absolutely crucial to the future prosperity of New Zealand and the rest of the world.
I imagine that you have read 'The Spirit Level' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, this demonstrates very clearly the link between income equality and social cohesion. I am not however sure that your 'Big Kahuna' will actually work for two reasons:
1. Getting those with the capital and the power to agree to it is I suspect nigh on impossible, given that voters seem to be drawn toward right of centre governments offering less equality.
2. Even if you managed to get it accepted at a government level, I am not sure it would actually work.

Japan and the Nordic countries have very much greater income equality and manage it without such a radical change, they use a combination of culture and a fairer tax system and seem to have managed to persuade CEOs that their work is not worth the megabucks that some apparently think it is.

Keep at it though as the argument must be won if we are to survive.

Gareth
I like your UBI and single flat tax rate ideas.
Thank goodness someone is thinking outside of the square.
I do however have an issue with your capital gains tax.
Perhaps you would like to comment on the following:
I would suggest that inflation is largely the result of Government policies, inflation is a devaluation of our dollars, a loss of purchasing power, and a Capital Gains tax is the government taxing us on this loss of purchasing power.

The Government policies I refer to are, immigration policies, overseas investment policies, and controls or lack of controls on bank lending for residential housing (90% mortgages!).

I would also suggest that my family home is not an asset, it is a liability. It takes money out of my pocket each week. The shelter my home provides is essential for my survival, in this respect it is like a business expense, it enables me to function and produce.
While my home has increased its value in dollar terms,(Capital Gains) in real terms it has gained no additional value at all.

I fundamentally agree with your proposals. With one exception, I believe that the home you actually live in should not be subject to CCT, all other property you own would naturally accrue CCT. It is an onerous tax on those who bought, and live, in their homes that have increased in value through no fault, or indeed effort, of their own.

Thank you for your efforts on the Big Kahuna, for New Zealanders!

Frances

This looks like a very interesting concept.
Has it ever been tried anywhere?

There is a lot to like about many of your proposals. A couple of questions

Am I correct to assume that the UBI is not taxed (eg the unemployment benefit has a tax component to it). $200 a week for say the unemployment benefit is pretty much impossible to live on right now hence the reason for accommodation supplement, etc. If it was $200 less tax then it would be even worse. It is difficult to find a place to live for $200 a week let alone buy food, power, wastewater, etc, so with no additional support where needed social problems could arise.

Also, a flat tax rate is good in theory in regards to being equal for everyone. However the reality is that,like a consumption tax (GST) it actually adversely affects those on low incomes than those on higher incomes. 30% of a low income is far more likely to affect bill paying ability, etc as those on low incomes spend a much larger proportion of their total income on essentials such as rent, power, food, etc. What I mean is that $160 taken away from $500 per week might have significant impact on a low income earners ability to manage whereas $500 taken from $2,000 a week, whilst the same percentage of income, will not have such an affect on essentials due to the much higher income remaining. (And of course all of this question is irrelevant if the UBI is not taxed.)

I could see a significant number of people paying cash for assets such as gold, art, jewellery, etc. Obviously there is no way to track these type of assets so even though in the overall scheme of things it might represent not such a significant amount, they could possibly become an attractive method of evading the capital tax? (eg if I buy $x in art or gold, etc each week then I should make good capital gains on sale without having paid any capital tax during the period of appreciation?

Although I think it's a great package you put forward and is certainly better then what we have, I have to very much disagree with you on the exemption of financial instruments. The stock market is quite often referred to by 'experts' as where investors invest in businesses, etc. In reality, only the IPO money is an investment in the company and therefore in the real economy of products, services, jobs, etc. After that, unless the company is sold, all trades of those shares are simply persons trying to make money for themselves rather than any investment in the actual business.

If a companies share value on the stockmarket goes up, the company doesn't receive any new capital to put into the business and if the share price drops, the next day the business is still producing the same amount of goods with the same customers, etc. It's just the shareholders that receive new income (if shares are sold and quite often these shareholders were not initial investors but speculators looking to make a buck) To me, buying shares with a view to making money from selling at a profit is no different to buyin a house and hoping to sell at a profit. These types of activities should be taxed also.

Finally, even though I back most of your package,I read that Roger Douglas proposed something similar back in the 80's. That one thing makes me very very nervous and I start to wonder that there's something in there you've accidentally overlooked as I don't believe for one second that Mr Douglas would suggest anything, in any way, shape or form that's purpose was to lower the inequality gap and make the low income earners and the poor more well off, whilst making the wealthy pay more tax. Call me cynical or bitter and twisted but I remember the late 80's very well and the word treason springs to mind!

At last a real debate on systemic change for a part of our economy. Congratulations for throwing your thoughts out there in a way that a sustainable and coherent discussion has a possibility of educating enough people to bring about meaningful reform.
I am enthusiastic about the CCT and UBI as a core way to redistribute and so allow every one to contribute to our society.
Your ideas address inequities in our social fabric but as far as I can see does not address the even greater dilemma of our age.
Ie An economy that persists in giving incentive to degrade the environment.

Any economy must be directly linked to the ecology. This is our real capital.

Sir Albert Howard, a pioneer of the organic agriculture movement, considered that the fertility of the soil determines the future of civilization.
eg What relationship is there between a 6% return on a farm valuation and the decreasing fertility of
it's soil. ie What is the Government bond rate connection to ecology?

Once again I hope the Big Kahuna contributes to a solution of the systemic failure of our economy
to address social and environmental inequity.

Ok... So I've finished the book now - still slowly processing it. Generally I found it a very good read - thought provoking! :)

My concerns around the limitations of the UBI could be largely alleviated by a slightly higher income tax rate (no more than 33.33%) to allow for better transition support for the elderly (till compulsory Kiwisaver has been in for long enough to make up the shortfall) a small UBI for children to ease the burden on parents and a big chunk of money for the overhaul of government support services for the permanently disabled that would be required in order to allow them to live a dignified life on the low UBI.

My questions are:

Minimum Wage - The minimum wage is currently used to provide a 'living wage'. If the UBI becomes the new 'floor' and waged labour is supplementary then would you expect to see the removal of the minimum wage (and it's associated distortions to the labour market)?
I know that one or two proponents of UBI systems (e.g. Milton Friedman) opponents of a minimum wage.

Property that is not home/business - I get how the CCT would apply to farms, businesses and even family homes. How would it apply in the case of things like Churches, Marae, Scout Dens, Community Halls etc that might be sat on significant land/capital values but provide services for free to the community and are dependent on charity to maintain themselves. If they came under the CCT most of these would be unable to pay and would eat through their equity within a few years.

I find this a very interesting idea but I feel you've missed some things.

Firstly I find it laudbale to recognise that the growing gap between rich and poor is probably the greatest problem we face and you're proposal certainly goes some way towards addressing this. However you completely miss a sid-effect of this gap which is the inequality of power between the poor and the rich and your proposal does not address this. The real problem is the economic system called capitlsm which needs to be assigned to the same scrap heap as communism as it is just as big a failure.

The problem with capitalism is that it is intrinsically anti-democratic and works to ensure that the owners of capital as represented by the employers have vastly more power than the people who actually do the work. If you make the investors merely the suppliers of capital, entitled to interest and the safety of their investment but nothing more, the tax system becomes simpler. In this case business has no owners and of itself is not taxed. What is taxed is interest returned to the investors. The company would then be run on democratic lines (possibly a weighted vote based on salary and length of service). Surplus profits would then eityher go to the workforce and thus be taxed as income or it could be reinvested in the company or even used to pay back the investors and reduce the company's liability to the investors.

Under this scenario, businesses can never be taken over as there is no ownership. Investors could still trade their investments much the same as bonds but as they have no say in the running of the business a takeover cannot occur. You could still have mergers by the consent of both companies.

This is just an outline but you can see where this goes.

Now that I've laid out my own radical credentials, I have serious problems with CCT and the idea of taxing assets. I agree that capital gain needs to be taxed but you are taxing the entire asset regardless of its efficiency. If you apply CCT to the owner-occupied family home then logically you should also tax all other assets like the car, furniture, clothing etc. After all they're all assets. You could exclude a certain value of personal assets, but once you start, where do you stop? I cannot see for the life of me why an asset should be taxed directly. Under your system assets become a liablility rather than an asset (I think there's a bad pun or double-entendre in there somewhere). In the end I cannot agree with applying CCT to one's residence - people do not generally own their own home as an alternative to investing elsewhere. Most people own their own home for the security not the profit. They do not gain any real benefit from a rise in the capital value as they have to live somewhere and whatever they buy will be at the same relative price whatever that actual price. There is also no realistic possiblity of them ever gain income from the asset so taxing the potential income from it is just unfair.

That said, full marks for attempting a radical simplification of the tax system.

You have defined a problem in that our current tax system is inequitable and leads to mis-allocation of capital. Everyone seeks to fix this by fiddling with income tax. The Big Kahuna is just another fiddle. It is lovely and simple but you have already had to apply "temporary" patches for pensioners, solo parents, children, youths at home and youths unable to live safely at home. Then there are the sick and disabled to consider.

First accept that income tax is broken, and cannot be fixed, mainly because of the size of the community which has a vested interest in exploiting its weaknesses. Any income tax is a tax on production, which no economist worth his salt would support. Through income tax, we hobble our productive sector and hand a massive market advantage to imports. A tax reform which leaves income tax at 30% is just fiddling. If you abolish income tax then the capital gains loophole disappears, as do many other well known methods of tax avoidance.

Second, while our society may actually be a wealthy one, we do not, and will not, "acknowledge that every individual has the same unconditional right – to a basic income sufficient for them to live in dignity" without working. Thus the UBI will always need supplementing.

Thirdly, we need a debate as to how much redistribution of wealth we want as a society, and I congratulate you on contributing to this. Completely separating the tax and "welfare" systems will allow us to address this debate rationally. There has been a tendency to confound tax and welfare so that only the net effect appears in our official statistics. For example, John Key gets a concessionary rate of tax on his first few dollars of income. This concession is a (misguided) attempt at redistribution, but is nowhere totalled and shown as "Government Expenditure". The UBI and flat tax certainly exposes this sort of fudging. He is getting something very close to the UBI already.

Finally, Rome is burning. This is no time to fiddle. We need jobs for our youth, a balanced current account, a sustainable government deficit, and a healthy investment climate. This is all possible within one budget cycle.
Perhaps the Morgan Foundation could sponsor a working party to establish the framework. A long weekend at some five star watering hole for a group including Maori, Pakeha, men, women, other genders, a hairdresser, a taxi driver, a farmer, a mathematician, a philosopher, parents and a food bank worker. No more than six people in all. This is not rocket science and we should get it completed by the second day. We need to establish what we want from our society, which the Big Kahuna starts on, and we need to establish a pathway for Bill English to follow, so that we can get there from here without scaring the horses. And taking an axe to pensions is certainly scary.

The are answers that are simple, rational, and capable of being costed. There may be other answers. There are paths to where we want to go, once we have decided where that is. There may be other paths.

I quite like your tax ideas. Pity the polititians are not brave enough to at least try them out.
The other structural problem in our economy is our exchange rate. There are two problems here. one its volatility and two its rate of increase.
I wonder if you have ideas on how to influence this.
I quite like the Brazilian transaction tax on forex which at the very least should reduce turnover and volatility. It may not fix the rate of increase however which is killing exporters dead at present. I feel a correction comming when milk prices turn. What are your ideas for the later problem?

Superannuitants would undoubtedly be worse off under the regime you propose, for reasons well-canvassed in this discussion. The combination of GST and CCT would, for many of them, result in a negative income stream. Having three different types of tax (plus, presumably, excise, fuel tax, LTA rates and the rest) seems, in any case, to be overcomplicated. Have you given any thought to a transaction tax - fewer collection points, low admin costs, universal?

Gareth has stated on a number of occasions that, as a wealthy person, he pays nowhere near enough tax commensurate with his wealth. As there is no law that says you cannot pay more tax if you want to, then he must be taking advantage of the same "avoidance" techniques that he accuses other wealthy people of using. Isn't this a touch hypocritical, to be lecturing us all on how we should be paying our taxes when he himself does otherwise?

We already pay a tax on homes/property, it's called Rates

Labour 1972 - 5 put a 90% tax on the profit on selling your home

The people we bought our home from lived in it for a year and sold it to us for a non taxed $100000 profit, and did the same to 2 more places that I know of, so there is some value in some of your idea.

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