Why is TOP Home Tax and triple Poor Tax “fresh”? A party totally rejected in 2 elections, “fresh”? Why a “citizen’s income” for the rich, while the poor get NOTHING to pay a Home Tax?
This is just getting too much.
Not one place I look is any commentator talking about anything except personality politics of Quilae Wong - “fresh”, “co-operative” and other female - oriented words.
Are they seriously advocating voting for a party because its leader is a good salesperson? Or against them because they might go into a coalition?
This is the most insane attitude to voting conceivable.
What about policies?
Don’t believe me, watch the clip (1 minute) - from Big Hairy Finance Debate - Wellington 29th August 2026 - YouTube
Who will TOP’s tax policy hurt? 3 comparison graphs show what TOP’s tax policy really is.
1. Income tax by income bracket, plus Homeowner’s LVT on the median Auckland residential land value.
Table 1 compares the income tax earners will be paying under existing, Green and TOP tax policies, plus TOP’s Land Value Tax (LVT) on the median Auckland residential land value of $800,000.
Land value is determined by location and Council zoning, not necessarily size. So 1/8 acre (500m²) can have a higher land value than 10 acres (4 hectares) within 10 km.
Either may be ruled non-subdividable, or infill development prohibited, by Council rules.
As property prices are driven up by factors outside homeowners’ control, LVT increases. For 1/4 acre valued at $2.4m, triple the LVT column. The other columns stay the same.
2. What is the “Citizens Income”, Who misses out, and Who really pays for it?
TOP’s policy is to pay a flat rate of “citizen’s income” (CI) to everyone, including the super rich. Except that everyone gets it on top of their existing income, except those who can’t work - the sick, the redundant, the carers for family, the retired. They get it instead of their existing income. So they have NOTHING to pay the ADDED home tax.
Table 2 is a comparison between the rates of the Green Party’s guaranteed minimum income (GMI - which is only paid to those who need it, not bankrupting the government, renters and homeowners to pay people who don’t need or want it; and is funded by a small wealth tax on the super wealthy - who can afford it - instead of by income tax and home tax on homeowners and low/middle earners who can’t afford it.)
Unlike the existing income assistance, and Greens proposed GMI, TOP’s CI is not indexed to inflation, prices or wages.
So it will be eaten up by price and rent rises and wage resistance, just like the Covid payments drove up prices - and they stayed up and kept going up.
And as land prices continue to rise (see the comments below), the CI will no longer cover LVT. So people without the income to pay it will lose their homes. And they will pay it instead though rent, to landlords. From their wages or sale proceeds, or if there are none, the government will pay it direct to the landlords through accommodation supplement.
The CI is also structured so it can be repealed, as “too expensive” - leaving earners with only the taxes - LVT and increased income tax, and nothing to pay them: instant loss of masses of homes. This is exactly what was done in 1986, when TOP’s founder Gareth Morgan was assisting in the neoliberal asset and income stripping of New Zealand.
TOP states that the CI will be paid by the LVT. So let’s look at who pays that:
Table 3 shows who gets tax deductions for LVT. The answer is, everyone except homeowners. While the Greens and TPM wealth tax is not tax deductible.
TOP specially exempts super rich land hoarders. They can simply put the land into a charitable trust, or put a conservation covenant on it. Then it is exempt from LVT (on top of other tax advantages).
The farm/forestry rate is set so low that farms up to $12m land value (that is 95% of farms) pay nothing. The LVT, after tax deductions, for a $12m farm in a Trust, is less than one couple’s CI. If a farm makes a complete loss (no taxable income), it cannot claim the tax deduction. A couple’s CI still covers LVT with no tax deduction, on farms with land value up to $7m.
What is being said vs the true situation
Here are some examples of disinformation being spread through social media. Including by so-called “left wing” influencers. And my replies, which have been ignored, or screened out by the social media platforms themselves.
It is important to read this part. because it explains about how the above policies really work. And how voters are being tricked into voting for a policy that will destroy our society as we know it.
This example: a comment on economist Dr Harpreet Singh’s excellent Substack article The Wealth The Opportunity Party’s Land Value Tax Leaves Untouched (which sadly doesn’t show us the sums of what it does touch):
No disputing that the Opportunity Party proposed land tax is a policy based on capitalist values, but specifically it revolves around the idea that colonialist capitalism needs a “shake up” which would get the working class out of their suburban homes on quarter acre sections and into city apartment blocks, force more intensive land use, and encourage capital to move away from speculation in land and into manufacturing and services.
Under Opportunity’s proposals, Maori communal land would be exempt from the tax, as would conservation land. Therefore I personally would have no worries, but those of my neighbors who are on land held in general title would be caught by the land tax, because while you could have exemption on the grounds of the type of title, you could not have an exemption on the grounds of race.
Having said that, the whole suite of Opportunity proposals, which are really aimed at overcoming the current political and economic crisis of colonialism, need to be critically examined. I will be publishing my own analysis and assessment on my Substack shortly. Suffice to say that while radical political and economic reform is necessary for Aotearoa, the way being suggested by Opportunity will not cut the mustard.
“revolves around the idea that colonialist capitalism needs a “shake up””
How is a tax on poor people’s homes, tripling income tax on the lowest incomes, giving the proceeds to the rich, and replacing income supports for those in need with a set un-indexed $375(?) a week, a “shake up” of “colonialist capitalism”?
“force more intensive land use”??? - What for?
We need 10k more homes in the WHOLE COUNTRY - apartments.
In 2023 there were already over 2m residential dwellings for a population of 5m. 10% of them are unoccupied.
Everywhere there is vacant unused land, usually owned by investors.
So what is the need to force HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF HOMEOWNERS out of their homes?
“The whole suite of Opportunity proposals, which are really aimed at overcoming the current political and economic crisis of colonialism”
Ah, no, they are aimed at
Stealing votes from Greens and TPM (Te Paati Maori, the Maori Party) which they have copied, in the vaguest terms, without stating any specifics. To obscure, downplay and distract from their only real policy:
Finishing off the Morgan/Douglas 1980s “political and economic crisis of colonialism” by fast-tracking transfer of what wealth and financial independence ordinary wage earners and unwaged have, to the funds and corporates which extract, monopolise and control governments.
Returning the working population to the “old world” Victorian era of abject poverty, complete powerlessness and working for the privilege of being able to eat; and government devoid of taxes subsisting on favours to the rich.
Right back to the situation that Fraser and Savage rescued New Zealand from, turning it into one of the most prosperous and egalitarian countries in the world.
But I guess people wouldn’t know that. Because it hasn’t been taught in our schools.
“encourage capital to move away from speculation in land and into manufacturing and services.”
Ah, hahahaha, no. Wong specifically stated SHARES - which do not give a cent to businesses. That gives money to pushing up the value of shareholdings in the stock market held by VULTURE FUNDS like Kiwisaver and other rentier investors. Who screw the actual productive companies, customers and renters for more and more profits, forcing price hikes, asset stripping, closure and monopolisation of production and services.
Investors don’t start up productive businesses and services. Small, talented, inspired, normal people with education and opportunity - like the inventors of Tesla - do. Investors either buy them up and extract from them, or shut them down by market abuse (if they refuse to be bought, and try to compete instead).
Same with infrastructure. Investors buy in to extract profits, not to provide utilities. They run them down and force government to pay to fix them, to keep the utilities going.
If you want to move money out of speculation in land, stop paying speculators to do it.
1. Take away the tax deductions (I recommend for ALL enterprises where the ultimate owners are worth more than say $10M - they can subsidise their own ventures) and apply them to home ownership (reducing dependence on the state), education, health, R&D and the creation and sponsorship of opportunity and real, ground level, producers instead.
2. Stop driving up rents with accommodation supplements and impose rent controls instead. Without servicing ability, home prices will not rise.
3. Tax VACANT land, not people’s homes and SME premises. And tax “charitable trusts”. And if we want particular conservation land (over and above the enormous amount of the country we already collectively own), buy it, don’t rent it with tax deductions.
4. Forbid banks to lend for speculation and hoarding, requiring them to fund startups and productive expansions at reasonable interest rates. That was how Japan became the 2nd most powerful economy in the world. Until it was forced into the rentier model in the 1980s.
5. When the rentier investors run down public utilities or crash banks, don’t reward them for doing so. Do the same as happens to everyone else who trades into insolvency - bankrupt them (prosecute them if they have defrauded people or traded recklessly), buy the assets at open market fire sale prices, and run them properly.
6. Invest TAXPAYER funds directly “into manufacturing and services”, for profitable returns and provision of services - instead of giving them away to rentier speculators and monopolies in tax cuts and gifts (aka subsidies).
Very simple. Obvious. And not what TOP wants.
CERTAINLY “fairness” is not what TOP intends by tripling tax on the lowest incomes, plus doubling tax on the low-middle bracket, removing income supports, and leaving 83,000 unwaged homeowners - the sick, the redundant, the caregivers, plus hundreds of thousands of retired - NOTHING to pay tax on their homes.
Frankly, Sean Plunkett’s X account has better commentary on TOP’s dangers to the poor/middle than #BHN, Bernard Hickey, Paul Barlow, Martyn Bradbury, or any so-called “left” influencers.
Opes partners - different slanting. Bigger fish will come for the big fish.
And an abusive comment, about “0 interest” on deferrals (CF the Duncan Garner video below).
NOTE: this is NOT in TOP’s policy page on their official site. Interest is charged at 9.x% on all IRD debt. Records numbers of businesses are being shut down. Many of those business proprietors’ homes will be lost. How is Wong going to change that?
And Duncan Garner? Dressed in his best suit, absolutely swooning as the Bingo Board of lies is played out. From his interview of TOP’s leader Qiulae Wong on 11 October 2016:
Listen to a sample of the lies and evasion. (14 minutes, the first ~3 minutes is enough to show the absolute prevarication and fudging used to cover the truth.)
A bingo board of them in just 3 minutes of the transcript is below.
Some further reading (about TOP’s leader Qiulae Wong’s right wing political connections:
🚨 Every voter should hear alarm bells when a party backed by a multi-million dollar trust of a far right neoliberal who was instrumental in stripping New Zealand in the 1980s, advertises for a leader, who then invents a raft of policies strongly resembling the 2 parties that support a Wealth Tax.
TOP has only 1 policy.
Winston Peters gets a few things right.
Then Pat Brittenden gallops in on a white horse to TOP’s rescue:
And with Labour leader Chris Hipkin’s partner as well: apparently she is the business partner of Ian Lees-Galloway, manager of TOP.
I guess that’s a reason to refrain from exposing them.
OK. That’s enough for today.
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*** DISCLAIMER: I am not an accountant, but I can add. I have published these self-evident facts and simple arithmetic because no one else has. If you disagree with any of my workings, please let me know in the comments. Let’s resolve it so we all know!