Labour MPs once again showing their complete lack of understanding of the real world.
Comparing the tax someone pays on their salary to a property investor not having to pay capital gains tax is total nonsense.
Where do I even start with such low-brow comments? How about the fact that there aren’t any tax incentives to invest in residential property in NZ today. Not only are property investors taxed on capital gains, the only type of investor in NZ who does have to pay capital gains tax are property investors, not people who invest in:
- Shares
- Businesses
- Artwork
- Classic cars
- Gold, silver, other precious metals
- Or charities who pay no tax at all, even ones with hundreds of millions in assets
There used to be some tax benefits to investing in residential property. In the old days, you could claim depreciation on your houses. When any losses you incurred on your property could be offset against your salary, that was a tax benefit. Today your losses are tied up in the entity that owns the property. If you don’t make any profit, you can’t claim your losses.
Furthermore, there IS already capital gains tax on residential property investment. It’s just been reduced from 10 years to 2 years. But why is there a capital gains tax on residential property investment at all? What do Labour have against tenants? Why don’t they want tenants to have a choice of rental property to live in? Why do they keep driving up rents by making it more expensive and less attractive to be a property investor, someone who provides long-term rental housing for people who are saving up to become first home buyers?
We need more property investors, more rental housing, not less. Private rental property costs NZers far less than social housing. Social housing costs a fortune, generally turns into rundown slums and/or open prisons, ruins good streets, and costs the taxpayer a fortune. Private rental housing is far better than state, just like almost everything provided by private companies is better than state-run.
I think the answer is simple. Labour and Greens are addicted to more taxes as they are addicted to reckless spending. Look at how many tens of billions the last government wasted with nothing to show for it. More taxes are not the solution, what we need is less government. Less stupid politicians who we fund through our taxes. We could tax everyone in NZ 100% of their salary and it wouldn’t make any difference to the public services provided. The extra money would simply be wasted – like it was during the last government on reports, consultants, handouts to people and organisations that don’t deliver any benefit to anyone but themselves.
Instead of more taxes, let’s have less government, fewer politicians, fewer rules, less reckless spending, and fewer nonsense speeches.
John Kenel
Assured Property Investments
Click here to read the full NZ Herald article.
