Yeah, I wondered at that too. I thought it was reasonably obvious that it was sarcasm, and even if it weren't it was still pretty tame - didn't think it warranted a moderator intervention. Especially since I haven't seen one for a while. I was wondering whether the moderation was sarcasm as well, but that didn't seem right...

My spologies – It was sarcasm…. Some people got it though.

Phillip John – any rebuttal from you?

Payroll tax, however, only impacts around 40% of employees in Australia, which is a little hard to control for. By rights that should mean that pay is higher in smaller companies, which I don’t believe is true.

It is, of course, all a red herring. Australia’s tax as a percentage of GDP is lower than NZs, and the tax wedge is distorted by the inclusion of superannuation. Or, to put it another way, we all think that Australian gross salaries are 30% higher than ours. If we include super and payroll tax, then they are actually 45% higher than ours.

The point that DPF is making is that both Labour and the Liberals in Australia are promising to cut tax by a very significant amount. After those cuts most people will pay a lot less tax than they would in NZ. In particular, people earning under $30K will pay (depending on how you calculate) either no tax, or they will actually get paid $34K and get taxed 9% super and 6% payroll tax (if they work for a company with turnover greater than $1 million). They will also pay 10% GST and no GST on food.

In NZ, there are currently no plans to cut tax, and in fact our government has been very clear over many years that the right direction for tax is up. Sam and friends seem to believe that our current tax rates are exactly right. I suspect that they actually believe that they should be higher, since they are often keen to model us on certain economies in Europe. I’m pretty sure that secret agenda wouldn’t go down too well in the election campaign next year.

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2007/10/ha_i_was_right-2.html#comment-355871

Now, of course any tax leads to deadweight loss within that market – draw a suply and demand graph, lines S and D. For D as price falsls quantity increases, the opposite for S, where they intercept is where supply meets demand. Now, sraw line St, this line is supply with a tax added lets say its 10%, this new will be 10% higher than S at all quantities. Where do St and D intercept? at a point with higher price and less quantity, the triangular area described by this intercept point, the ‘S,D intercept point and the point where the quantity is the same a the St,D intercept point on the S line is the area of deadweight loss

It’s Saturday. Don’t try that as a pickup line… not a winner.

I’m no stalker – I believe the words I used were “Manolo, on another thread”.

rakaunui(moderation): It is for the reader to decide who is a big liar, not for you to make unjustified exprapolations

Perhaps our esteemed moderators could simply discern truth from lies on our behalf, and then publish the results. Should simplify things nicely.

Peak Oil – i’ve never written a pro-labour letter to the dom but i have had a couple published against nat positions – i’m not a labour supporter… never said i was politically neutral, no-one here is… curious that you suddenly make not of the letters, haven’t written one since John Key said the war was over…. stalking? I’m based both in wellington and napier, thanks for your interest.

Now, of course any tax leads to deadweight loss within that market – draw a suply and demand graph, lines S and D. For D as price falsls quantity increases, the opposite for S, where they intercept is where supply meets demand. Now, sraw line St, this line is supply with a tax added lets say its 10%, this new will be 10% higher than S at all quantities. Where do St and D intercept? at a point with higher price and less quantity, the triangular area described by this intercept point, the ‘S,D intercept point and the point where the quantity is the same a the St,D intercept point on the S line is the area of deadweight loss.

The producer surplus is the triangular area between where S intercepts 0 quantity, the S,D intercept and the price at point at quantity 0, he producer surplus is the amount extra price the producer has received for selling each of those units above the price at which they were willing to produce them.

The consumer surplus is the opposite, the area below the D line showing the lower price that the consumer is paying for each of these units then they were willing to pay for them.

obviously, when you’ve added St and create the deadweight loss, that area will take area off both the producer and consumer surpluses.

that happens no matter what the tax (or other cost increase) is – add a cost, cut into both producer and consumer surplus.

(deadweight loss itself is not an argument against tax, after all tax pays for the framework the market operates in, provides healthy, educated workers etc etc)

Sam – if you want to be taken seriously, you need to do better. You have some worthwhile things to say, but at the moment your credibility is eroding. Keep it up, and nobody will listen to you.

Isn’t Labour socialist? Isn’t the Pope a catholic?

Try doing a tax return some time – if your employer isn’t paying your ACC earners levy out of your gross wage / salary you have underpaid tax and need to make it up.

Of course most things you say are flat wrong so I’m not really surprised that you can’t get the simple facts on how our tax system works right.

But what about all the water restrictions, Aus is drying up.

are they just a nz/aus conspiracy to get Kiwis home