The coalition Government will cut income taxes for the average worker by $832 a year by adjusting tax brackets upwards by 11.5% and creating some targeted tax credits.
This policy aligns with what was promised in National’s election campaign and is paid for by cutting spending elsewhere and raising some targeted tax revenue.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis said working age New Zealanders would save an average of $832 a year, or $16 a week.
Households with children fare better and are in line for an average tax reduction of $2028 per year or $39 per week.
These cuts aim to tackle fiscal drag but only correct tax brackets for the inflation that has occurred in the past couple of years. The current tax rates were set in 2011.
Treasury said tax policy changes did not affect headline fiscal indicators due to spending offsets. The plan is fiscally neutral on average, although the timing may matter.
One economist said tax cuts could be a short-term risk to inflation, as they arrive all in one go, but it would be a temporary shock the Reserve Bank ought to look through anyway.
On the other hand, the central bank is most worried about the short-term inflation outlook and has a high level of confidence inflation will be under control soon.
The tax policy costs an average of $3.7 billion per year and makes up a significant chunk of a wider $9 billion rearrangement of Crown finances.
Willis has opted for lower annual operating allowances than some expected. She will add $3.2 billion of new spending this budget and $2.4 billion in each of the next three.
In addition to the $3.2 billion operating allowance, she has found $3.8 billion in savings and raised anther $2.1 billion from new taxes and other funding.
This means she had a total of $9.1 billion to spread around in the Budget. After tax cuts, health got the biggest boost with $2 billion in new funding to cover cost pressures.
Education including tertiary received a $1 billion increase in its budget, law & order got $460 million, and the social sector got $370 million.
Willis said the budget was targeted at restoring spending discipline and rebuilding the New Zealand economy.
“Lower allowances will result in about $5.5 billion improvement in OBEGAL over the forecast period, when compared with the allowances set by the previous Government,” she said.
However, Treasury warned that her future allowances of just $2.4 billion would likely fall short of the cost pressures required to maintain the current level of services.
“The high-level analysis indicates that the future budget allowances are unlikely to be sufficient to cover future cost pressures on existing services,” it said.
This means the cost saving exercises and public sector cuts that occurred this year will have to be repeated in each budget to fund new initiatives.
Other policies
New Zealand First secured its coalition commitment for a $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund which will be overseen by Shane Jones.
The money will be spread over the next three years and will initially focus on flood resilience infrastructure. In the coming years, it will also focus on enabling infrastructure that supports better economic outcomes in the regions.
The $1.2 billion is made up of $900 million capital funding and $300 million operating.
Another NZ First policy has helped to fund the income tax cuts by switching the year of free university from the first year to the last.
173 Comments
The tax changes apply from 31 July 2024, apart from FamilyBoost which applies from 1 July 2024.
https://budget.govt.nz/budget/2024/at-a-glance/tax-relief.htm
Forget about the budget for a minute, this is a little bit comical
You nailed it in one.
Collectively, we get no 'richer' from here on. Costs - reflecting scarcity, lowering EROEI and entropy - will always outstrip, from here on in. Governments will duckshove - blaming LG's and semi-corporates (think: grid) but costs will collectively outpace.
Don't blame anyone, though - it's the silly growth-assuming that we did, which got us into this hole.
jeremyr: "You do understand this is a once a year thing right ?"
There seems to be about $2.6 billion that must come from future periods. I.e. it is currently a 'hole'.
I expect a steady stream of budgetary 'announcements' for the next 12 months (until the next 'budget') about further cuts and further expenditure ... and further borrowing. (I further expect future expenditure will be hidden through PPPs.)
Same old. Same old. Accounting chicanery.
Is NZ Inc. any better off? No.
Just our government kicking the can further down the road while existing, vested interests cream the sweat off worker's backs.
You'll be pleased to hear that the Taxpayers Union agrees with you
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/mother_of_all_disappointments
Education got another billion. Health got another 2 billion. Another half a billion for law and order. That's most of the package, apart from tax relief, which people can spend themselves on things they need rather than the government picking what to spend their money on.
Same, I think that's a very sensible policy and it should have been this way from the start (although ultimately I'd prefer we take a more serious long-term look at future resourcing required in critical areas e.g. health and teaching, and then commit to free education for the duration in a much narrower range of qualifications)
The apprenticeship boost scheme was also wasteful spending under Labour. An employer was given $1000+GST per apprentice, per month. Simply for employing an apprentice. Paying them $23 and charging them out at $80 is a win in itself but an extra $1000 on the side? Sure why not. And how many apprentices ended up sticking out their apprenticeship and are now qualified? Less than 50% in my experience. This scheme is still on going but at a mere $500+GST. I believe National were going to end this scheme but haven’t looked into the budget to confirm.
It should be mandatory to report budget spending in real per-capita inflation adjusted amounts. Otherwise it is all meaningless numbers that sound good, but have little context. For all I know, Health and law and order might have just got an effective 5% budget cut, even though their budget is higher in dollar terms.
Tothepoint, so you believe tax relief for those suffering from the cost of living crisis is misguided? These are potentially recent FHB's that are straddled in debt, food bills, rates and insurance have also increased - not a nice space to be living in. These are people you somehow know have no regrets of home ownership - none whatsoever. If there is anyone out there that doesn't need it, it's you and me. At least it's something that will perhaps be the difference to some retailers remaining in business - or not.
I believe as long as it doesn't prolong the battle to reign in inflation, deepen our fiscal nightmare, drive up interest rates further, it's got to be better than nothing - right?
31st July - four weeks later than expected.
Who was it that so authoritatively said PAYE tax changes would be made April 1st because that's when they're always made?
(I couldn't be bothered replying but now would be a good time to for that person to fess up and apologize. They may also like to explain what reasons they had. Protecting the NACTF perhaps?)
So….you are saying that there would be violence if dared to ask whether these protestors are net tax payers. Interesting and says a lot about who they are…but I already know the answer, and it’s a no for the adults, but a majority of them don’t count as the crowd seems to be stacked with kids that have no idea what they are actually there for. PS, violence is the last resort of a beaten man, so you may be on to something…
You must be making less than the minimum wage. People earning 15,600 get $112 a year (2.15 a week). From 42,700 the I work tax credit increases by $50 a fortnight. Given 42,700 is still well below minimum wage you are likely not working much?
Given how little tax already applies at 15,600 a year it would be very difficult to make any sort of meaningful increase to the tax benefit for people on that little income without a tax free threshold. It is worth noting that 15,600 is below the jobseeker support level (before even the winter energy payment or accommodation benefits are taken into account) so most people earning at that level are teenagers still living at home who are below the age at which the minimum wage applies.
Pretty meh, but they had to deliver something, sadly though they need the revenue so can't deliver as effectively as they could and somewhat futureproof us for the next decade. Works out around $22.50/week for me and that will already be gobbled by insurance and rate increases, let alone the cost of groceries going up even this year alone. (revised number after redoing the calculator)
It is in the budget documents. The thing with a summary is that it needs to drop some information so as to present the most important stuff or they might as well just point you directly at the budget document. Everyone will have a different take on what is most important so decisions have to be made based on the majority.
Alternative rough guide income table
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/05/earners_on_60000_get_the_largest_pro…
Don't let Budget Day 2024 and the protest movement distract you from the big news of today - Flybuys is closing.
But in all seriousness, is there some kind of simple calculator to see what you get? I'm not expecting much, but want to know if we're talking "get three cookies instead of two at Subway" or "take the wife out for a nice meal" type money.
Official calculator here: https://budget.govt.nz/taxcalculator/index.htm
Seems to max out at ~$90pf excluding FamilyBoost. It's weird, if you pump up the income of both, the amount drops to $80pf.
Same situation, many children, incomes far too high for WFF or tax credits. $90pf
$45 about covers the increase in groceries in the last 6 months. So I guess it's something. Really don't need it though, might put it towards some Ben and Jerry's and a single admission to Furiosa for a little potential realism.
100 comments about subway 2 lattes or a kilo of mince! missing the basic fact that if people wanted/expected a serious $100+ A WEEK taqx break we re talking 10 billion ! its a step and aq bloody important one! index linking tax brackets would be a real commitment =
imagine no cuts -- no index changes ---- and effectively we would be talking a 20 aq week tax increase!
Really? My hatred stemmed from the looming ethnostate, crime going through the roof and the approach to COVID-19 (medical mandates and QE). Housing as a standalone was probably 4-5th on my list. Seemed common rankings amongst my social group, 40-60, white and yellow, mid level professionals and a chippie.
By lesser people you are literally talking about the colonists who actively advocate for genocide? Um hypocrite much. Better to view the shared humanity because if you want to see genocide & colonization of the historical lands the Ottoman empire did a significant amount and the current governing powers are actually advocating for even more genocide of the indigenous population to that land. But then hey human history only goes back 100 years eh, not like humans lived centuries or millennia before then. It is actually quite interesting once you start learning about history of the lands there. But I guess that is only for history nerds.
What you are doing would be like claiming the British Christians are the true and only indigenous people of NZ (ignoring all other cultures here) and advocating for the eradication of Maori from their homelands. Somehow your side of view is even less enticing.
Better to stop playing the game then to to be a pawn advocating for yet more harm.
It's quite ironic that you talk about viewing history through a miopic lense. The states of Judah and Israel go back thousands of years. The people you describe as indigenous are largely descendants of colonisers in the form of Islamic Caliphate expansion in the area.
It's extremely complicated and not summarised in a couple of short one sided paragraphs. Not even close to being equivalent to European colonization of NZ.
What's all this about then?
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2024-05/befu24.pdf
Table 1.1 on page 14 pf the PDF (page 10 of the document) forecasts house prices to increase by 2.5% next year
For anyone interested, I've been developing a website offering an interactive budget breakdown. You can see it at BudgetBird.co.nz
It is a work in progress and I plan on adding more revenue data and potentially incorporating service performance measures.
Nice idea and execution. Frown emoji at the pie/doughnut chart, but at least it's not in 3D...
https://www.myonlinetraininghub.com/worlds-most-accurate-pie-chart
Thanks, I’ll update the About page shortly. You can reach me at Harry@BudgetBird.co.nz
Would love feedback/suggestions!
Wow the superannuation figures are eye watering.
$15.5 billion 5 years ago ( $42 million a day)
vs
$21.6 billion today ( $59 million a day) - now more than half of all welfare spending and 12% of all total spending.
That's a 40% increase in cost in 5yrs. But don't worry, let's cut school lunches by a couple of million and that will fix the books.
White (grey) elephant in the room, we are spending an extra billion dollars every year on the non-means-tested pension. ( Remember we only have $70 billion in the fund ) Going to run out sooner than we think..
There's 850k people in NZ sucking up this 21 billion a year.. nuts
This is the big one I think. The budget itself is what it is I don't personally have much of an issue with it, income earners deserve a break.
But the way our super is structured is particularly vulnerable to shifting demographics given that it is a pay-as-you-go scheme.
The Australians are much better positioned to face a demographic shift with the way that structured their super. But a lot of people in New Zealand don't seem to understand that the taxes they paid over their working lives were not set aside waiting for them when they retired, they were spent on infrastructure and services.
If we do nothing it will break at some point, you can't have an ever shrinking working population supporting an ever-growing retired population, when your revenue is almost entirely generated from workers incomes and productive businesses. The maths doesn't work out, we desperately need some kind of asset tax to shift the burden off the working age population and get revenue from a more diversified portion of the population. It doesn't make sense to have income earners have to fund a non-means tested pension for people with millions in assets.
that is what kiwisaver was created for to move the country from a pay as you go scheme to people saving for their own retirement, i try to encourage all young people to join it with the words that, don't expect universal super to be around in this form when you get to my age and by showing them what i have in my 3 supers so that i could retire years early. in saying that hope its still non-means tested by the time i get there but if not oh well lucky i have mine in a trust (apart from kiwisaver)
"This policy aligns with what was promised in National’s election campaign and is paid for by cutting spending elsewhere and raising some targeted tax revenue."
Is there a quick summary to what's being cut and the targeted tax revenue?
As kiwikidz likes to say, no free lunch
This summary is ok but not exhaustive
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/518246/budget-2024-at-a-glance-wha…
Looking through BEFU, they estimate that economic growth picks up again next year mostly due to interest rates falling at the end of 2024. Only problem is that the RBNZ aren't planning on dropping the OCR until late 2025. So who is wrong?
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2024-05/befu24.pdf
Here's a thought for you ... Your fortnightly tax cut is being paid for ... by you - or other taxpayers.
"What!?!" .. I hear you cry.
Well. It is.
Your government is borrowing money to give you the tax cut. You, as a tax payer, will need to pay it back.
What government hasn't done - and not for the last 30 years - is to tax the people actually receiving income - from all sources - so this 'budget' isn't anything of note. It just kicks the can down the road and ensures the rich get richer.
And you?
You get poorer. ... Like the frog in slowly boiling water.
There we agree - the Government is....... us.
But a minority of us - call them 'them' - has bought this government, and will be repaid. At the expense of those who are us but not them.
Still doesn't solve your temporary store of wealth issue - that's orders of magnitude bigger.
Yup. This guy is shameless.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/05/14/jones-suggested-fast-track-bid-at-undeclared-dinner/
Thanks Chris, I get that. I am merely stating that I am not fooled that this government cares about the average worker. It’s time for ROI for the political donors. Some play money to distract while austerity destroys front line services and future assets sales once the companies have sufficiently been starved of capital. The play book has been used before.
My take is the ones who can link the dots have left or are planning to, not that it helps migrating to another country that has the same systemic issues. Call me whatever you like, I’d just prefer the future of NZ to be a meritocracy and not the plutocracy it is becoming.
"But as a worker and not a LL"
You seem to think that people are either workers or LL, most LL's are workers too, they just do the LLing on top of their daily work. Maybe after 10-12 years of doing both, they may, maybe, have enough cashflow from their PI, to quit their jobs.
Kia Ora Yvil. Thanks for your reply. That was sarcasm. I am acutely aware of LL’s working as some colleagues are more than willing to share their stories on company time. In fact, one was kind enough to pull me aside and explain that buying a few rentals and mailing it in at the office to collect a good salary was the path to success. I think this shows up well on his net worth and NZ’s poor productivity as per every study.
It’s secret article 5, it clearly says that one group will receive unlimited handouts and other free money as well as endless and ongoing preferential treatment. It must be paid for by everyone else otherwise there will be loud complaining, wearing of cowboy hats, not turning for work (work being optional) and waving of flags of a country that doesn’t exist next to Israel, and the forcing of kids to protest about stuff they don’t understand. Article 5 was drafted just after the election last year and is retrospectively binding. So clearly this budget is in breach.
You do understand that govt is borrowing to give tax cuts? You get that, right?
You also get that you, as a tax payer, will have to pay that back, right?
Perhaps you also understand that the tax cuts are also being given to people far richer than you? Like landlords?
Perhaps you also understand that many people - way, way richer than you - continue to pay way, way less tax than you?
(Some people are easily fooled. Mr Frank appears to be one of them.)
Here’s my analysis of the budget.
1) A society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable.
2) NZ already has 130,000 households in energy poverty. The proposed $15 per month increase in electricity bills will push more households into energy poverty. The budget did nothing.
3) Foodbanks in 2023 in NZ fed 480,000 people per month. Equivalent to the population of NZ per year. The budget did nothing.
4) Rent to income ratios in NZ rank as some of the highest in the world. The budget did nothing.
2) energy increases were always going to happen as power companies would have to increase the costs massively even to maintain the existing network. Because of massive increases in demand and more renewable sources we also need massive infrastructure development in the generation & transmission networks and storage which also requires massive cost increases in your bills. Assuming they would not increase or that the govt could subsidize private businesses to the tune of billions of dollars considering our current financial state as a country is ignorant at best.
I am actually surprised the difference is so low compared to when Aurora was forced to stop pocketing the money and instead do the essential emergency maintenance so failing power poles don't kill their own staff (when they found all the money they had pocketed had unsurprisingly gone into investors pockets and C level bonuses and could not be recouped again when sht hit the fan). They pushed up the power bills so much as the public had to pay for all the private profits they had been stripping from the company years before. It is a good case to learn about in engineering as the engineer whistleblower who came forward after his friend was killed ended up being blacklisted from the industry. He came forward knowing that would happen because his ethics & morals were stronger then those being silent (but then again it did take a close friend being killed first).
In comparison the power increases are actually good news as they are far less then they should be and far less then inflation. I was expecting much more damage to the pocket from bill increases considering the state of NZ networks and the very rubbish design we use that is so susceptible to both weather and even people stealing the cables & equipment for metal.
3) Protip the govt is not in the business of making or selling food, they cannot direct your local supermarket at what prices they are able to set so the supermarkets will increase prices according to both logistics inflation & lacking competition.
There is a lot more support for kiwiharvest though which if you are not aware is how most foodbanks in the country are able to source the food they give away.
So if you want more done on 3 on the supply side then either look to regulating the private business of food retail a lot more with forcing more competition, & forcing pricing down (but you cannot go below the cost it is to purchase and transport the goods to stores) and looking at the massive cost increases on logistics which the govt can control as a significant amount is tax gathered.
Here is a pretty big clue on 3 there is nothing much that can be done unless incomes increase massively (the foodbank demand side) and most of those using foodbanks are on benefits... yeah don't see any government making a significant difference there because none of them actually do consider the cost of living necessities in setting benefits and considering we just passed a massive global mass disabling event we will see a huge spike in the numbers of families needing food bank support... oh look we did.
1) Provably wrong. Most politicians are picked without any consideration as to how they favour the vulnerable and sadly most voters vote selfishly and without consideration of the actions politicians & govt depts actually take. For instance Labour massively cut the wages and incomes of the most vulnerable and cut disability support, they also denied the poorest health sector workers for the most vulnerable the required pay equity increases they won in court (delaying them for 6 years and then finally cancelling them for good against court direction).
They also added policies to keep children in violent home environments as they viewed the safety of children as mattering less then race (with Whāngai fostering one of the worse practices to keep children in families that continue the cycle of violence in hapu from grandparents, to aunts & uncles, to parents and enabling violent people to massively destabilize the lives of children leading to the children suffering greater trauma and having more MH issues in adulthood). Having family die from this it is of no surprise that most of those on OTs books now are disabled children, who are also kept in violent households, who suffer worse life outcomes and will become near 50% NEET because of a denial to access education & communities. The safety of the child & stability of home environment is now far less important when considering their support so we will always see more children at risk of violence and more children suffering from drug and alcohol abuse or from violent injuries causing disabilities and trauma. To not even consider the intergenerational violent trauma of wider hapu & risk to children when making fostering placements is exactly the carte blanche approval for yet more violence in children's lives. It is saying that the safety of children matters less then the pride & culture of the violent parents. Sadly for many disowning wider family altogether & no contact is the only way to escape the violence for themselves and to ensure their own future children can avoid it... and it can still follow them in life regardless. We were lucky as many of the violent family members that were older left for Australia, but sadly not the wider family, gang affiliations and Whāngai fostering lead to many lost generations (they lost their opportunities, their future to trauma and some lost their lives).
Are we really surprised that the behaviour of National would be not much different. All political parties have devalued the lives of the most vulnerable in NZ and those with the worse wellbeing and no party leads with a priority to change that as those at the bottom of the heap on every metric, those disabled, are never much more then a footnote in actions taken by political parties.
Even the Greens & TPM did far more to harm disabled people and removed their access to housing and communities then any action taken by previous governments. It is pretty shameful.
So lets be clear. No political party prioritizes the lives of the vulnerable over their marketing appearance and their real self serving priorities. The NZ public mostly does not care one iota either when they go to vote and will not hold any politician to account (with memories shorter then a goldfish). All political parties act in the worst interest for the most vulnerable currently.
4) Seriously this is a joke what did you expect here?
Rent controls? would not be able to be enacted at all because of the massive shift (see below as to NZ investment culture) and so all private rentals increase (very rarely decreases) regardless of what any government does.
Subsidies & benefits? Only increase rents overall and so only serve to increase the rental costs for everyone.
More social housing? We already have no available social housing places and a demand that would take decades longer to build to cover. Social housing sets rent to around 30% of the income being taken, the measure touted as affordable but is often far from (as it never accounts for the cost of living for other goods increasing at rates larger then income increases). So building more social housing currently would not decrease the rents for most of the public one bit as it would take years for even current waitlists to drop much.
Capital Gains Taxes? Is not going to make much difference, (some but not what you are calling for) as investment in housing is such a cultural touchstone people expect it to fund a nice retirement lifestyle regardless of the harm it does to society or the debt risks they take up (after all they could always increase the rent they charge if their repayment rates & bills increase).
In fact given that buying investment properties for renting out is such a factor in our culture we really would need to have significant blocks and restrictions on buying investment properties in the first place yet we allow any person or company currently to buy (it is trivial to get around the foreign buyer bans). The government cannot enact laws that push for massive divestment in housing & cause more competition to reduce rents because that would be the end of whichever party was in power considering it is so tightly tied to the entire country's retirement wealth portfolio. They have the baby boom generation to look out for after all who are just reaching retirement age. Hence not even the most far sided in the opposition suggest that either. Because what truly would enable affordable rents is something so distasteful to all political parties they would need to have rock solid ethics and balls of titanium to enact and none of them actually want rent decreases to affordable levels. None of them are willing to consider living costs in benefits either so there is always going to be massive rise in inequity.
Given your statements are as wishy washy and provably erroneous then they should be treated as vapid and ineffectual as they are. You ignorantly thought ANY govt budget would make a significant difference to the above... Are you completely clueless as to the lives of the most vulnerable and destitute in this country.
No budget would make a difference because all departments, regardless of who is in power, have systemic levels of inaccessibility & inability to consider funding living needs and lives of dignity for those unable to work & vulnerable. Yet many political parties enact laws and policies that harm those who truly are vulnerable as we have seen in every year for the past 6 years as much as those before. Even parties with a mandate and social branding have been the ones to contribute to the worst harm to the vulnerable in decades. And you think a department budget fixes systemic issues. That is both insensitive to those in poverty for the very significant issues they face and ignorant of them as well.
It is like you are willingly trying to cause more harm by advocating for more of the same that only increases inequity.
If you want real change you would look at departmental policy & real prioritization of effective measures instead of dog whistles around a budget that does bugger all difference (because no budget does make systemic policy change or could).
You ignorantly thought ANY govt budget would make a significant difference... Are you completely clueless as to the lives of the most vulnerable and destitute in this country.
No budget would make a difference because all departments, regardless of who is in power, have systemic levels of inaccessibility & inability to consider funding living needs. Yet many political parties enact laws and policies that harm those who truly are vulnerable as we have seen in every year for the past 6 years as much as those before. Even parties with a mandate and social branding have been the ones to contribute to the worst harm to the vulnerable in decades. And you think a department budget fixes systemic issues?! That is both insensitive to those in poverty for the very significant issues they face and ignorant of them as well.
If anything if you voted in the previous government you contributed significant harm to those in poverty in this country to such a degree most are worse off then what they were 4 years ago (even accounting for covid effects most of the harm done was by government policies and management). Here is the issue there is no easy 4 month way out of that. No single one off payment will fix a systemic denial of education and income access. No subsidy will make all rents magically lower or food to magically become more affordable for everyone. NZ neither has the capital to prevent inflation on the cost of living nor the will to stop it (especially given our reliance on the financial investment in housing).
A budget is meaningless because the departments are locked into bad policy and priorities when spending any budget:
Its like the billion for Mental Health that went mostly unspent and what was spent went mostly to highly paid consultants & design companies to deliver ineffectual projects that affected nothing on the ground while NZ mental health & wellbeing took a sharp nosedive off a cliff. The MH foundation is one of the worst most discriminatory orgs that actually promote a further denial of MH support in this country while collecting a large pay check for themselves. We have plenty of bureaucracy with high pay sending paperwork to each other with lots of branding but zero on the ground effects and on the ground things get rapidly worse. In fact instead of any org relating to MH often people could only access support through the police, corrections & ambulance & ER, the bottom of the cliff. The MH foundation naturally discriminates heavily against many of the most vulnerable on purpose. So was the billion funding gone worth it? No it made things worse, funded a lot of highly paid office workers and did nothing to the charities who are on the front line. If anything it just increased inflation even more and increased harm by pulling money away from what was going to the front line charities.
Don't get me started on the abusive and waste of space every single employee of the ministry of disabilities and culture & heritage. If they were all fired tomorrow that would be an improvement as the funds taken for their pay could actually go back to the front line (who they took the money from in the first place).
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