Beck remains anti CGT

The Herald reports:

Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck took to Twitter to slam the Tax Working Group’s capital gains tax proposals within hours of their announcement on February 21.
“Just saw the NZ capital gains tax recommendations. Taxing IP [intellectual property] and stock will decimate the already fragile NZ startup industry. NZ already has big problems around creating large valuable technology companies and this will not help,” Beck posted.
Now he’s had more time to digest the recommendations, has his opposition mellowed?
No. It’s hardened.

The more you get into the detail of it, the worse you realise it is.

Simon Bridges says start-ups and other companies will be inhibited from spending money on research and development if they know a third of any ultimate sale of their company will go to the Government in the form of a CGT.
The National leader has claimed the CGT is a way of clawing back the recently introduced 15 per cent R&D tax break.
Beck agrees with Bridges’ first point.
“It the last thing the [business] community needs,” he says.
“We have a real problem in New Zealand building high-value, entrepreneurial businesses and start-ups.
“Where are all the billion-dollar companies? There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have them
“New Zealand has fantastic entrepreneurs. There’s no shortage of good ideas
“It’s just the entrepreneurs are cocooned in an environment that’s just globally not competitive – and adding another layer on that [CGT] on the start-up community is just not sensible.”

The focus should be on becoming more competitive, not more taxed.