Tax relief on the way for low-income ratepayers

Low-income ratepayers look set to get their first extra tax breaks from the Government in 32 years.

Prime Minister Helen Clark is expected to tell Grey Power's annual conference in Rotorua tonight that the income limit to qualify for the $200 rates rebate will be raised above $7400 a year ($142.30 a week) for the first time since the rebate was introduced in 1973.

The current income limit is well below the single superannuation rate of $255.81 a week, effectively excluding all superannuitants from the rebate.

Big proposed rate rises of up to 9.7 per cent in Auckland and 17.4 per cent in Papakura this year are expected to hit pensioners hard because most cannot go out to work or find other ways of increasing their incomes to cover the extra rates.

But the failure to adjust the rates rebate for inflation means that the number of people claiming it has dwindled from 102,000 in 1976-77 to fewer than 4000 today.
Progressive MP Matt Robson told Grey Power's 120 delegates yesterday that Helen Clark "will talk about some of those issues tomorrow".

A spokesman for Local Government Minister Chris Carter said the wider issue of whether local councils needed new funding sources other than property rates was being examined by council and Government officials, with a report due by the end of the year.

Grey Power asked all political parties to speak yesterday on four other election issues - health, superannuation, energy, and law and order.

A show of hands indicated that almost all the delegates knew someone on a hospital waiting list.

Senior Citizens Minister Ruth Dyson said last year's Budget provided enough extra health funding to double the number of hip and knee replacements over four years.

But National MP Tony Ryall said the Government was spending $7 million a year on "sex-change operations rather than hip replacements".

Peter Brown (NZ First) said New Zealand spent only 7-7.5 per cent of its national income on health, compared with 9.5-10 per cent in Europe.

"We need to put more money into health," he said.

NZ First and United Future both advocated tax deductions for private health insurance premiums, and National and Act said they were considering similar policies.
But Ms Dyson and Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said it would be better to spend the money on improving the public health system.