Rob
Hosking at NBR has penned two articles on IRD’s newly issued interpretation
statement on tax avoidance. Pursuant to his latest:
IRD officials can make changes to tax law retrospectively and on the hoof – and it is hurting New Zealand business, tax practitioners say.A long-awaited Inland Revenue interpretation statement on tax avoidance was finally released yesterday, and it confirms the ability of officials to deem activity tax avoidance even if it meets other criteria of the tax law.The interpretation statement has been in the works since 2001, and although several drafts have been published a series of court wins by IRD have shifted the legal boundary of what is, and is not, tax avoidance further and further in favour of the taxman.
I
have a question:
I'd
like someone in opposition to explain to me why they get
(rightly) exercised by government spooks spying on us, yet in this instance,
not a word of protest from the Fortress of Legislation on government officials having the power to rewrite a
taxpayer's history, just like they do in police states. Because retrospective
legislation gives them that power: what I do today that's legal, they can
manipulate at their discretion to be illegal tomorrow. By bureaucratic whim,
innocence is turned to (fiat) criminality, and so taxpayers live at the whim of
the state. No government, no state, should ever have such power.
Note
I know the answer, I just want someone in the Fortress, including a minister in government, honest enough to admit
it (and with it, admit the death of the free West, with its civilising rule of
law).
And
for that matter, what about all those other private sector groups protesting
the new powers of the GCSB, such as Tech Liberty New Zealand: why no
protest over taxation matters, given tax administration is where the truncheon
of the police state truly hits our backsides.
Because - as you well know - only 5-10% of kiwis - depending on how you count - actually pay any tax. The remaining 95% live off the backs of the high-value, high-worth 5%.
ReplyDeleteBut for some crazy reason the 95% still have the vote.
That's why Don Brash's "fiscal council" was such an important idea - that decisions on taxes and spending should be made only by those who payed for it all - No Representation Without Taxation
:)
DeleteStats a bit out, but yeah. And again, I don't agree with democracy: representative democracy will always become hopelessly encumbered with majoritarianism. Best to go for minarchy. Won't happen in our lifetimes though: we're lurching way, way, way over into the Gulag of the Big Brother State for another century first.