Rental property owners and tenants will be relieved that pressure from hundreds of thousands of voters and taxpayers forced the ideologically-driven Prime Minister to drop the ideologically-driven capital gains tax, Tenancies War spokesman Mike Butler said today.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern virtually told the media she wanted Michael Cullen’s capital gains tax but the myriads of opponents to the tax wouldn’t let her have it, Mr Butler said.
The arguments used to promote the tax, that a capital gains tax would help reduce inequality and that all New Zealanders would “pay their fair share”, assumed that those to be hit by such a tax were not paying their share, he said.
In fact, those who would be hit hardest are probably paying more than their share, he said.
The only people who appeared to support the proposed tax were those who thought they wouldn’t be caught by it, Mr Butler said, as was shown by responses of 90 percent who told one poll that they objected to having to pay a capital gains tax on their KiwiSaver investment.
However, a capital gains tax is just one silly idea from the current Government that those in the rental property sector won’t have to deal with, he said.
We still have to deal with the costly rental property standards that appear to have little to do with the claimed hospitalisation of children, possible changes to tenancy law that make it impossible to move on disruptive tenants, and the ring-fencing of rental property losses that may cause up to 116,000 rental property owners leave the sector, Mr Butler said.
Stop the War on Tenancies is a group that since last October has been highlighting the evidence that successive governments have ignored while creating rental property policy.
