Facebook readers vent over ‘horrifically selfish’ tax avoidance
Ordinary New Zealanders are carrying the tax burden while the wealthy use every possible means to avoid paying tax, ONE News Facebook readers claim, in response to damning new IRD details released yesterday
Yesterday ONE News revealed how some of New Zealand’s wealthiest people worth more than $50 million are only paying tax on around $70,000 of annual income.
ONE News reader Joshua Lion says “the rich have been avoiding their fair share since the beginning of time, and don’t be foolish enough to expect any party to do anything about it either.”
But Michael Ryan Thomson questions whether New Zealand expects to be any different to any other capitalist nation. “We all know the wealthy use every possible means to avoid tax whilst everyday average struggles payday to payday. Tax law permits it and ird policy writers fail in advising ways to stop it.”
Bennett Morgan points out that most of these people were educated by a state school funded by taxpayers “yet they refuse to fund the next generation of children going through schools. That’s pulling the ladder up after you’ve used it. It’s horrifically selfish and I cannot understand how people do it.”
“It’s a tax accountants’ job to make sure the client pays the least tax they can,” Lynne Voyle says. “This is usually handled by purchasing a new car for ‘business purposes’ or other expensive ‘necessary’ items. Tax avoidance is totally legal in NZ and the laws need to be adjusted.
“I can own 10 houses and get $3000 a week in rent and not pay tax by putting it all back into those houses. Then make a whopping profit on selling them, when I have paid nothing out of my own pocket.”
Mr Morgan agrees, saying it’s “a complete no-brainer” to put money in a house, not pay tax year-to-year on that house and live rent free rather than keeping the money in a bank, getting interest and paying tax.
But the high profile Kiwi entrepreneur told Breakfast this morning that tax avoidance is not the preserve of the rich and a lot of self-employed ordinary Kiwis are working the system.
