90 seconds at 9am: English talks tax reform and the need for fairness

Click here to watch this morning's video. Bernard Hickey details the key developments over the weekend in 90 seconds at 9am in association with ASB, including news that Finance Minister Bill English gave a major speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants over the weekend about tax reform. He talked about the need for tax reform and how any changes should be governed by equity and fairness. He also picked out the sheltering of income for tax purposes by property investors. He pointed out that in 1999 residential property generated NZ$600 million in taxable income, but that now it generated NZ$575 million in taxable losses and reduced tax revenues by NZ$150 million. English also pointed out the unfairness of the NZ$70,000 threshold for NZ's top tax rate of 38%, which is 1.5 times the average wage when the OECD average is 2.4 times. He said he needed to be convinced on land taxes or on an increase in GST, which would need to include compensation for the less well off. Here is a full copy of the speech.