– The 2023 election in New Zealand is marked by allegations of fiscal holes against major parties.
– The Taxpayers’ Union accuses Labour of not accounting for potential changes in eating habits when costing their policy to remove GST from fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables.
– The Taxpayers’ Union claims this would create a fiscal hole of $411 million to $123 million.
– Labour’s costings only consider the GST collected on fresh and frozen food, without factoring in the possibility of people consuming more GST-exempt food and less food subject to GST.
– Labour argues that their policy would encourage healthier eating and that they accounted for seasonal fluctuations in demand for fruit and vegetables.
– National criticizes Labour for not following Treasury’s guidance on modeling demand changes and claims that no economist supports Labour’s GST policy.
– National also argues that the policy would primarily benefit producers and supermarkets rather than consumers.
Source: nzherald.co.nz
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
