The Green Party welcomes new research proving New Zealand's wealthiest families pay less than half the tax rate of a middle New Zealander, ultimately recommending a wealth tax.
"The super rich are being given a hall pass to rip hard-working New Zealanders off. New research today proves, once again, how the system allows them to make bank at everyone else's expense," says Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.
"Nicola Willis says, 'There's no magic money tree,' while she upholds a system that makes hard-working New Zealanders pay double the effective tax rate of multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires. She knows that she's starving our public services and driving up the cost of living for regular people, but I guess she's keeping National's donors happy."
The Income, Wealth, and Tax at the Top report found:
- The very wealthy paid an effective tax rate of 8.1 per cent between 2021 and 2024, less than half the 17.4 per cent paid by a middle New Zealander.
- The top 10 per cent own about 68 per cent of New Zealand's net private wealth, while the bottom half own 3.5 per cent.
- If the top 1 per cent's effective income had been as taxable as a middle New Zealander's, they would have paid about $7 billion a year more in tax.
- Raising income tax rates alone won't fix the problem, because the very wealthy can move income between personal, trust and company structures and wage earners can't.
"The National Party's entire election campaign now seems to be run on a petty, personalised attacks. That's because they don't want to talk about solutions. They don't want to talk about their devastating economic track record. They clearly don't want to talk about wealth inequality and how it's tearing our country apart – they'd prefer to tear our country apart."
"There's a reason the Greens wealth tax has the support of two-thirds of New Zealanders. People feel every single day how hard things are, and how rigged the system is."
"It's the same reason Luxon's Government moved at pace to revoke the legislation that enabled the IRD to report on the unfairness of the tax system, under urgency, just before Christmas 2023. They know just how messed up things are, and they want to hide it."
"The Greens are campaigning on an economic plan that will rebuild our beautiful country and ensure everyone gets a fair go. I'm sure this will prompt another round of hysteria and name calling from the Nats, but the Greens will remain focussed on solving problems for New Zealanders," says Swarbrick.