Tax Working Group to release reform options on Wednesday

The Victoria University coordinated Tax Working Group is set to release its report with various options for tax reform at 1pm on Wednesday, Treasury said. I will be attending the news conference in Wellington and reporting from the presentation of the options. I welcome any suggestions for questions and lines of inquiry from readers. Here is my piece from December 3 which was written after the Tax Working Group's final public conference in Wellington. Just a reminder on what I think might come out from the Tax Working Group, which includes various figures from government, business and academia.

I think the government will look at equalising the top income tax rate with the corporate and trust rates at 30% in the 2010 budget. The NZ$1.6 billion cost of this could be paid for by one or two smallish taxes on rental property investors such as the denying depreciation on buildings, making depreciable buildings taxable on sale, denying the offsetting of rental losses against other income or imposing a Risk Free Return Method for taxing the inflation-adjusted equity in rental properties. I'd like the government to equalise the income tax rates at 27%, increase GST to 15%, replace Working for Families with a NZ$2,000 per child semi-universal payment and impose a land tax, but that's politically too hard before the 2011 election. I'd like the government to campaign before the 2011 election for a 25% equalised income tax rate, a 0.5% land tax with a NZ$50,000 per hectare threshold and an inflation adjusted, universal Guaranteed Minimum Income to replace all benefits, including New Zealand Superannuation.