5 April 2005

Finance - Tax cuts not strikes key to better wages

Libertarianz Leader Bernard Darnton today repeated his call that under Libertarianz proposed tax cuts workers would receive a bigger boost in their take home pay.

Mr Darnton was responding to yesterday's strike action by workers seeking a pay increase at Colgate Palmolive in Wellington and Stagecoach in Auckland.

Libertarianz are proposing to drop the top personal tax rate to 15 cents in the dollar and extend this 15-cent rate up to an unlimited amount, as well as abolishing GST.

As a result, a worker on $40,000 per year would be $49.04 richer a week, while a worker on $60,000 would be $122.89 wealthier - and this ignores the effect of abolishing GST.

And this is only an interim measure - the taxpayer can expect a rate of about 5% or less a few years later.

"Libertarianz bold tax proposals are equivalent to at least a 15 - 20% percent pay-rise for the average worker under Labour's current high-tax regime," Mr Darnton said.

"Booting this anti-worker, socialist Labour Party out of office at the election, not industrial action, is the single most effective way that workers can get the pay-rise they want and deserve.

"Households are no better off since Labour came to power. Labour's tax hikes and inflation have wiped out any pay rises over the last six years. In short, households are being squeezed.

"Libertarianz is the only political party that can be trusted to return the Government's obscene $7 billion surplus to those who earned it - the hard-working taxpayers of this country," concludes Darnton, who notes that despite making many noises, the ACT party still wants to steal millions of dollars more off the taxpayer."

ENDS

© Scoop Media