Capital gains tax almost irrelevant – English

While there be a lot of talk from political parties about a capital gains tax (CGT) next year in the run up to the General Election, English says he thinks it is nearly irrelevant.

During a New Zealand Initiative webinar about Kainga Ora, English says a CTG would be a complexity that doesn’t collect much revenue.

He says every finance minister who looks at it seems to come up with the same answer as the former Labour Government finance minister Michael Cullen told him at the time: “You will go through it and then the IRD will tell you that it is actually not worth it.”

When English was in charge of the country’s finances he says there was no cabinet constituency for a CGT.