CALLUM PURVES: National preparing to keep Labour's 15% App Tax
- Administrator
- Mar 2, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 2, 2024
Labour's App Tax is a 15% sales tax paid for by the mum and dad accommodation providers, takeaway joints, and ride share drivers. The App Tax hits sole-traders who sell their services through an app or website such as Uber or Airbnb. It will add even more to the costs of living for every Kiwi who buys or books services online.
For any other small or micro-business, IRD's $60,000 de minimus amount applies before a taxpayer is required to register for GST. But not under this new App Tax. If you rent your spare bedroom, or family bach for just one night through an app, your earnings will uniquely be taxed.
Before the election, Nicola Willis pledged to scrap Labour's App Tax. In fact, the National Party ran a campaign featuring a video 'Axe the App Tax!'
In a media release last year, Willis said:
“This is simply another tax grab from Labour to fuel their wasteful spending. When they run out of their own money, they come after yours ... We will fight against this new tax every step of the way. National opposes the App Tax and if elected we will reverse it."
But just weeks into Government Ms Willis wants to plough ahead with Grant Robertson's policy. This despite IRD officials indicating that the tax is so complex, and unfair, they assumed it would not proceed and had stopped working on it. But that has suddenly all changed.
To put it simply, this isn't what New Zealanders voted for, and for those struggling to make ends meet driving for Uber, or renting the spare bedroom on Airbnb, it's a kick in the teeth. And it's for that reason, today we are officially re-launching National's own campaign to Scrap the App Tax.
Send government a message before it is too late.
Callum Purves works for the Taxpayers' Union as Head of Campaigns
More needs to be made of National's U turns Callum and thank you for this article. I didn't vote for National but I used to sometime ago when I thought stuff it Labour National Tweedle Dee and Tweedle dum. They are almost the 2 sides of the same worthless coin. They also sai we are going to remove the Auckland extra tax on petrol, lo and be fukn hold they aren't but going to increase it. How many got sucked in by the same old boy and girls lying their way back to the treasury benches to cry about the mess Labour left after they were their watching them do it. Useless in opposition and will fail in government. We…
https://youtu.be/7UJPjULCa9Q?si=cJfUK2q7NuSooo71
Finishing shift cover, sorry to all the female drivers out there....
Surely there are other ways of saving money? Luxon should not keep paying Jacinda $500.000 plus for the Christchurch Call which may well turn into something stopping free speech. Also, surely Vote Maori's 632 million and other such spendings aren't really necessary? The Maori Television Service receives the bulk of its funding from the government via Vote Maori Affairs.
"The Minister for Māori Development is responsible for appropriations in the Vote for the 2023/24 financial
year covering the following:
• a total of just under $137 million for the promotion of Māori language and culture through direct
funding of broadcasting entities (Te Māngai Pāho and Māori Television Service), Te Mātāwai and
Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Māori Language…
Why would anyone expect the leopard to change its spots? National protested vehemently when Labour imposed the GST regeime, yet when elected to office, instead of repealing it, they increased it? Perhaps, that Mr. luxon campaigned on "tax relief for all hardworking Kiwis", and now that he calls the shots, he will reduce GST? Somehow, if he's as true to his word on repealing the app tax, as assertive in his entitlement to derive $52.000 courtesy of the taxpayer for renting his own property, then preaching reductions in public service expenditure, it's a forlorn hope. Next he'll be applying tax breaks for landlords and denying his conflict of interest?