Even though they lost an election trying to campaign on Capital Gains Tax, Labour are not ruling it out.
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has confirmed a capital gains tax could be introduced if she leads the next Government.
Ardern has revealed it was her own “captain’s call” to not rule out introducing a capital gains tax on rental properties or second homes next term. …
Labour will wait to hear what a planned tax working group recommends on the matter, Ardern said – but waiting to act until after the 2020 election was too long. It would not apply to the family home, she said.
“It is different leadership, different decisions,” Ardern said. “Andrew [Little] made a call that he would go back to the electorate.
“I made a call that if I was in government and presented with a tax working group paper that suggested these are the things you need to do to be able to tackle the housing crisis and inequality in your tax system, to then sit on that for one, maybe two years without doing anything didn’t feel right to me.”
She had talked to finance spokesman Grant Robertson, but it was ultimately a “captain’s call”.
Good. It’s clear that she’s taking responsibility for it then.
Not sure how many people want to vote for a government that’s basically saying “We want to tax you all more, but do so fairly. We will turn the whole tax system upside down once we have a working party of unknown people, structure, duration and scope recommend to me what to do. And then, I might not do any of it, all of it, some of it, or even something completely different. Please vote for me. Because… fair.
How long are the media going to allow her to get away with a flashy smile and absolutely zero substance?
I, on the other hand, place my trust in voters. They tend to make good decisions once they’re in the polling booth.