[Opinion] King hit on Hickey

In an opinion piece in the Sunday Star Times on 7 February, Bernard Hickey once again made unfounded, inaccurate and untrue statements about rental property providers in New Zealand.

Hickey has a maniacal dislike of people owning rental property and providing somewhere for people to live. He must by now know that his claims of rental property owners having special tax advantages is wrong, yet he persists in spreading this misinformation.

In his last opinion piece Hickey states that “Rental property investors argue they are taxed at the same rate and in the same way as everyone else. That’s just not true.” For the umpteenth time Bernard, yes it is. But it isn’t just us trying to argue this point, even the IRD have confirmed that it is true.

Hickey tries to defend his point by saying that “Income from wages and company profits are taxed through PAYE and spending is taxed through GST”, however this is incorrect and misleading. Company profits are not taxed through PAYE. Company profits are taxed through income tax, just as rental property profits are. The owners of companies that increase in value don’t pay tax on this capital gain, just as rental property owners don’t if their property value increases. This is also the same for the self employed, farmers and shareholders.