Gareth Morgan has renewed calls for tax reforms after backing comments by businessman Stephen Jennings that the tax rules "favour the old and rich".
In a speech to the NZ Initiative think tank in Auckland on Thursday, Jennings said the nation faced numerous challenges that were increasing the social divide.The overheated property market was among issues favouring some people but making it impossible for others.
"What about our children and grandchildren and people on low incomes who have no hope of buying a house? What I'd say to those [older, property-owning] people is we're storing up social and political problems that are going to come home and bite us," Jennings said.
Although he wasn't the only one to come out in support of Jennings, none put it quite so eloquently as Morgan, who tweeted: "Nice not to be the only rich prick saying that the tax system favours us. Time for a change."
Morgan followed this with a link to a story titled "How foreign corporates avoid paying tax and what we can do about it". With New Zealand estimated to be losing hundreds of millions of dollars in overseas tax annually, at least some in the public arena are calling for a change.
Jaguar's new F-Pace range was launched at Motat, with prices starting at $95,000.
Addition to the cat family
Luxury car brand Jaguar, helped by PR firm Campbell and Co, put on quite a show on Tuesday night at the launch of the Jaguar F-Pace range - mainly thanks to the location at Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology. Add a historical timeline of Jaguar cars to Motat's regular display of iconic and historic vehicles, hanging aircraft and gliders, as well as a few cocktails, and the scene was perfect. In true businesslike style, Jaguar representatives moved around the hall helping potential customers - and signing up a few for the new SUV with prices starting at $95,000. Not a bad business plan - appealing to those in the room who were hunting for the latest "it" ride.
Rod Drury, chief executive of accounting software firm Xero, has hit out at local media for giving the company a rough ride.
The National Business Review ran an article this month comparing Xero with its main competitors and showing Intuit was outstripping Xero by more than 10 to one in new online subscriptions. The article also questioned the NZX-listed firm's performance in the US. Drury responded by tweeting what he called the "NBR Playbook":
A " one-sided story on old numbers, no analysis, no call for balance.
B " Tweet incendiary link.
C " Use response to create story two.
He followed up by saying NBR was dumbing down its commentary and simply looking for clickbait stories. NBR responded by saying it was purely a numbers story and was comparing share prices of the various accounting software firms. It also said NBR regularly did in-depth stories on Xero and its rivals, and was simply following the progress of each. Questioned over his suggestion that local media were part of the reason New Zealand companies no longer wanted to list on the NZX, Drury said Xero had shifted events to Australia where there were less "local rubbish polluting news alerts".
