Registered: Sep 2000
Location:
Posts: 1925

The maori population in New Zealand is being offered lower tax rates.

The average weekly income for adults of Mäori ethnicity is $302.

The average pakeha (white person) income is $660 per week.

If a poor white person pays the current flat rate and a maori person who earns more than them pays less, is this fair?

Are there better ways to further the postion of the poor than a) robinhood syndrome (tax the rich and redistribute to poor) and b) lower taxes for maori.

What do you think?

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: somewhere you're not.
Posts: 218

if the government makes a bias in favor of one person over another based on nothing but race... that's racism. plain and simple. there should be an effort to help people of poverty, and i myself have no solution, but this is definitely not the way to do it.

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 987

I agree with naughty jewels of gold. It's racism. If they feel the need to help them out they should base it on income alone, nothing else should be included in the equation.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

What on earth are you talking about GB? I just filed my tax return and as far as I could tell I didn't get charged any less than a pakeha.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Dumbfucksville!
Posts: 12164

ACT leader Richard Prebble says his party strongly opposes the government's proposal that Maori authorities and trusts pay only 19.5 percent tax, rather than the 33 percent rate that applies to all other businesses and trusts.

"The government has tried to slip this measure through Parliament by including it in the annual tax bill - the Taxation (Annual Rates, Maori Organisations, Taxpayer Compliance and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill - which is now before the Finance and Expenditure Committee," Mr Prebble said.

"This bill will give lower taxes to some of New Zealand's largest businesses, for example, the Waitangi Fisheries Commission and all its subsidiary companies. The commission controls half the country's fishing quota and is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Another major business that will benefit is the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, which has assets of more than $200 million.

"The government's argument that the 19.5 percent rate should apply because many Maori don't earn enough to pay 33 percent tax, doesn't stack up. People who set up charities for children still have to pay the 33 percent rate.

"The Pacific Island community is poorer than Maori, and the Department of Statistics reports that there are more non-Maori poor than Maori poor, yet they won't benefit from the lower tax rate.

"The savings industry has pointed out for years that low-income people in superannuation schemes are discriminated against because the schemes must pay 33 percent tax. The government has done nothing about that.

"This measure amounts to race-based tax laws, which is Kiwi apartheid," Mr Prebble said.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location:
Posts: 1925

*nods to gfy*

muffy, do you know what classifies you as a maori - i.e. what % you have to be?

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

Richard (the fascist) prebble can suck my pink parts!

Maori trusts and whatnot get charged less as it is part of the govts way of redressing the severe dicking suffered by Maori under the treaty of Waitangi. Of course you aren't allowed to say 'treaty of Waitangi' in NZ anymore without someone beating you over the head with a large salmon.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

quote:

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Originally posted by Gorilla Biscuit
muffy, do you know what classifies you as a maori - i.e. what % you have to be?

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Dumbfucksville!
Posts: 12164

Did the majority (whites) pass a law in favor of the minority, even to their own disadvantage?

Would that be similar to a law being passed in the United States that said that Blacks and Puerto Ricans would pay lower rates?

Is this similar to certain Blacks' desire for reparations for past injustices to their forefathers?

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

Blacks and Puerto Ricans didn't have their land stolen from them by an unlawful sovereign last time I checked.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

Yeah, but in all fairness, that Maori bounty hunter guy did have himself cloned a zillion times and attacked all them Jedi.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Zion
Posts: 4444

quote:

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Originally posted by MuffyTheVampyreLayer
Blacks and Puerto Ricans didn't have their land stolen from them by an unlawful sovereign last time I checked.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 10121

Big ones: no cigarette taxes for one.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Zion
Posts: 4444

quote:

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Despite the clear legal obligation of Indian tribes to collect and remit these taxes to the states, many tribes evade this responsibility. Unfortunately for the states and for non-Indian retailers, little can be done. States lack the jurisdiction to enforce the collection of taxes on Indian reservations and sovereign immunity shields Indian tribes from any legal challenge states or non Indian businesses may initiate to compel the tribes to collect and remit the taxes they owe! As a result, states are forced to forfeit millions of uncollected tax dollars every year. In Washington State alone it is estimated that the foregone taxes can amount to as much as $100 million annually. In addition, failure by Indian tribes to collect state taxes allows them to severely undercut other non-tribal businesses by allowing them to charge artificially low prices for gasoline, cigarettes, liquor, and other retail items. In many states the Indian tribes' evasion of state taxes gives them such a significant competitive advantage that it is forcing non-Indian retailers out of businesses. As these tax-paying businesses fail, the income of the states are further diminished as its business tax base starts to crumble.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

Good for the injuns. Do they get a vote in state elections? Maybe they should forfeit it if they do, but it seems some consolation that they can sort out their own taxation.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 1800

It's not fair.

Taxes due should be STRICTLY a percentage of income.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Baba Kueria
Posts: 3146

...And Whitey should never have invaded NZ.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10413

P_H is smarter than I was told.

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Registered: Dec 2001
Location: Baton Rouge
Posts: 1574

quote:

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Originally posted by Gorilla Biscuit
The maori population in New Zealand
What do you think?

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

I would find your views insulting if I wasn't so bloody apathetic.

However, I feel I should point out that maori trusts are held on behalf of the iwi (tribe - if you like) and are in large used to make grants (charity) toward members of that iwi. Most charitable organisations have some sort of tax exemption/lower rate type thing. The trustees also have a duty to ensure profit on the trust (which is taxed) otherwise they are in breach of their fiduciary duties. The trusts have been formed in order to stop further claims by the maori on maori land which has been unlawfully obtained by the crown and sold on to innocent parties. If the lower tax rate was part of the 'package' ensuring that no further claims will be made on the land (which I might add is millions and millions of acres), then I don't see why anyone would bitch about this.
If someone stole your land off you you would want some form of compensation wouldn't you? Unlike many claims by parties who have had land taken from them by colonists (or whoever) the maori actually retained the deed titles to the property, giving them the legal right to the land, or the right to claim a fair price if they are going to give it up.
While I feel it was kind of stupid for the govt to make different tax rates as a means of redress, realistically, buying the land outright would have bankrupted the country, which isn't in anyones best interests is it?

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