With budget day coming up this week, Terry Baucher looks at how the government can shake up the neglected tax thresholds to benefit lower income earners.
Contrary to all the campaigning and clamour, the introduction of the new 39% tax rate on April 1 was the first change in tax rates New Zealand
In 1989 I was filming a documentary about Peter Blake and his family during the Whitbread around the World Yacht Race. One of the ports of call was Fort Lauderdale in the USA and when I went to the car hire rental depot I was struck by the fact that the people washing the cars and doing the manual labour on the site were all senior citizens.
Now curiosity is in my DNA (at least thatâs my excuse for being a documentary maker) so I asked the guy doing the paperwork on our rental vehicle…
â I canât help but notice that a lot of your crew are quite oldâ
New Zealand s new 39pc capital gains tax: It s pretty harsh stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
With median gains of about $280,000 on every profitable investment property sale, according to CoreLogic, that means a significant portion of investors’ gains are likely to have a 39 per cent rate applied, if they are captured by the bright-line test. Geof Nightingale, tax partner at PwC, said 39 per cent was a higher rate than would be applied to capital gains made in Australia or the United States. “In Australia, the top tax rate is 45 per cent plus 3.5 per cent Medicare so 48.5 per cent. Capital gains are treated as ordinary income.
ALDEN WILLIAMS/Stuff
People whose investment property gains are captured by the bright-line test could be surprised at the tax rate applied.