MEDIA RELEASE
Business confidence shows need for urgent
30 AUGUST 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
With business confidence falling further and firms’ perceptions of their own activity sitting at its lowest level since the GFC, tax reform to kickstart
productivity and wages is urgently needed, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.
Taxpayers’ Union Economist Joe Ascroft says, “Businesses need more than a working group. They need real changes in policy direction,
including tax reform. Business breakfasts with CEOs and Cabinet Ministers simply won’t cut it for the average small
business.”
“Company tax rate cuts – accompanied by full capital expensing – would put a rocket under business investment and put an
end to the doldrums. If focused at measures to boost productivity, the evidence shows that tax relief would flow through
to workers in the form of higher wages.”
Company tax issues, including full expensing of capital, are discussed in the Taxpayers’ Union’s submission to the Tax Working Group, available at www.taxpayers.org.nz/twg_submission.
ENDS