Labor insists National has made another tax mistake

By RNZ

National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith remains defiant. The party’s economic plan is piling up, but it has had to make another correction after using outdated figures.

The party also intends to save $ 60 million a year by testing the first-year BestStart payment of $ 60 a week for new parents, which is currently universal.

Goldsmith says that “National’s estimate is that it would lead to about half of the people who are getting in the first year to get it in the second year.” The party is seeking a threshold of around $ 90,000 for an annual family income, he says, but that will “become clear at an appropriate time.”

“The only point is that current government policy means that even the wealthiest New Zealanders are getting this payment and we think it makes sense to target those who need it most, and we have other policies like our first 1000 days of assistance to people who they’re starting their families, “says Goldsmith.

The second and third years of BestStart have already been tested.

National has been under constant pressure from the economic plan it launched a few weeks ago: Goldsmith has already made the first mistake of making $ 4 billion after using outdated figures, but Labor insists the mistakes still amount to double.

A second $ 88 million error, using the budget figures for the 10-year ‘Existing Capital Allocation’ instead of the pre-election update, has now been corrected in National’s online plan.

Labor says there is a second $ 4 billion error as National has twice accounted for transportation funding.

“Paul Goldsmith is reeling,” says Labor’s Grant Robertson.

“He’s trying to change his plan quietly in the background so he doesn’t have to confess to his leader another mistake.”

Labor says National has allocated $ 3.9 billion of transportation funds under the New Zealand Upgrade Program, but that money no longer exists in that program as it was transferred by the government earlier this year to a larger equity fund. general.

He says National has also counted and allocated that money in its general equity fund, so it has counted it twice.

Goldsmith says he doesn’t “accept that at all.”

“What we have is an ambitious $ 31 billion infrastructure plan … and it’s funded by a number of different sources and they all add up and bring us to the figure that we need to have, and that has been independently verified by NZIER. . [New Zealand Institute of Econonic Research].

“In the beginning, we were planning to take some money out of the Covid Fund for the infrastructure plan and we have decided to use it for stimulus tax cuts for the next 16 months.

“We have invested more than what are called capital allocations over the next decade or so.

“We have also recognized that there was a change in the way the government was treating its New Zealand upgrade program, so we have gotten more out of the future earnings from the National Land Transport Fund.”

Robertson says it hasn’t accumulated yet.

“He has twice counted funds worth $ 4 billion, which means there is now at least $ 8 billion in errors in his economic plan.

“To cover this, he is now claiming that he would take that money out of the National Ground Transportation Fund to make up the difference.

“Massive mistakes like this, if National made them in government, would put the economic recovery at risk.

“Judith Collins and her team cannot be trusted to run the economy – the $ 4 billion or $ 8 billion mistakes are not trivial.”

NZIER independently reviewed the original plan and says in a statement that the National Party “had options on how it presented its capital intentions.”

“The challenge for all political parties is to present their proposals clearly in the face of a complex and rapidly changing fiscal environment.”

The important question, he says, is “whether the National Party has presented a ‘fully funded’ capital program.”

“That is, can you meet your spending intentions based on projected income, taking into account the different sources of income used to finance capital spending … our assessment remains that the National Party plan is fully funded ? There is no double counting in the tax plan. “