what a difference a headline can make.
Both Stuff and NZHerald went with “NZ is 13th most taxed country in the OECD”.
The OECD has 30 members – something that took me – oh – about 15 seconds to find. Or you could look at the handy chart int he NZHerald article.
Lance – what would be interesting would be a comparative analysis of standard of living with taxation rates against the countries with higher taxation %’s than us. Having lived in Scandinavia for awhile, I can say that the extra 12% of GDP they extract in tax does some seriously good things…..
When used the tax Wedge (meaning that ALL taxes -and “refunds” such as the Working Families benefit are included, essentially a tax refund), NZ is now #2 LOWEST. see: http://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/html/06_Chapter_4-07.asp comissioned by the Howard govenment (before the WF benefit)
They say: “The tax wedge is the most useful measure of the tax burden to consider because it takes into account the interchangeability of cash benefits and tax relief.”
Why does the media ignore this economic postion?