Tax and Spend
May 29th, 2004 at 4:51 pm by David FarrarA new blog on the block is No Free Lunch. It is a joint effort with articles from Roger Kerr, Bryce Wilkinson and even myself.
The site is “dedicated to improving the quality of economic and public policy commentary in New Zealand”.
I’ve just posted an article on how, if Labour is re-elected, crown revenue will have increased by $30 billion over nine year. That is not a cumulative total, but a comparison of annual income going from around $40 billion in 1999 to over $70 billion in 2008.
No tag for this post.
May 31st, 2004 at 3:08 am
And it is, to put it bluntly, a pile of disingenuous crap. Growth in government taxation and revenue over the 1999-2008 period is entirely due to GDP growth and accounting differences.
“Dedicated to improving the quality of economic and public policy commentary in New Zealand”, my arse!
Vote:May 31st, 2004 at 10:12 am
Actually the 1999 to 2008 period uses the same accounting policies with regard to the text of the article (the graph is different but not majorly so).
You are also incorrect (or as you put it speaking crap) to say that there have not been policy changes leading to extra revenue. There have been many tax and levy increases – I think almost two dozen.
Also all extra expenditure is a government policy decision. Apart from CPI indexation of benefits, no expenditure automatically increases due to GDP.
The GDP growth from 1999 to 1999 is not far removed from 1999 to 2008. One Government reduced the tax burden and contained expenditure, while Labour has not.
Vote:May 31st, 2004 at 1:02 pm
David I think you mean from ’1989 to 1999′.
NRT also takes you to task over absolute numbers versus % of GDP figures.
It still seems to me that most people do NOT make the connection to lower taxes increases GDP and therefore increasing tax revenue on the basis of productive activity.
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