Interesting to hear their policies. I actually used the investment boost for my small side hustle business, which was nice come tax return time. I don’t think Labour’s policies quoted here will benefit me as my own circumstances are just too small potatoes (think thousands rather than millions).
I’m not necessarily opposed to changes to the system, as my own circumstances don’t necessarily matter a great deal, but I’d also be interested to knowing what might give the greatest overall benefit to business-people.
This is pretty difficult to parse with any confidence.
National say their policy will result in a GDP boost of “up to” 0.5% at a cost of $6.6B; which when put into numbers (and being generous) means at ~$250B of GDP * 0.5% * 5 years, means $6.25B returned to the economy. Hard to say how much of that will come back to the crown as taxes etc, but we can make a somewhat educated guess of 25% or $1.63B; on a $6.6B spend.
From above it seems like a terrible policy; but a portion of that growth will “stick” and flow on after the initial period of the scheme winds up. A lot of major assets last well beyond 5 years, especially industrial equipment.
Labour is proposing a more targeted scheme; aimed at small businesses and will cost $1.56B over 4 years; but doesn’t really do much to grow the economy. The GST stuff is really just tinkering around the edges; the asset write off moving to $10k is actually awesome. A real positive from Labour is the requirement for big businesses to pay smaller businesses withing 15 days; I know of a lot of big companies (Fontera notably) don’t pay for 90 days after invoice…
If I was to make up a better policy from the best bits of both.
- Keep the $10k writeoff threshold from Labout
- Keep the payment requirement from Labour
- Keep the tax incentive to invest in productivity improving assets from National
Improving productivity by investing is good policy; GDP gains stack over time.
