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Ryan Bridge: I wouldn't hold your breath for tax cuts · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Morning. Tax cuts are back on the campaign agenda. Nicola
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Willis dropped a wee hint at the Business New Zealand
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: election conference yesterday in Wellington. Bracket creep is hurting workers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. As your wage increases, you
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: creep into a higher tax bracket. You pay more marginal tax.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: That's not fair. So something might be done about it.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And I say might because there are caveats. There are
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: big caveats on this. National must first be re-elected. Its
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: coalition partners would need to agree, and that was far
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: from a done deal yesterday by the looks of it,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and the government must have its books back in surplus
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: before anything changes, and the plan for that at this
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: stage is 2029-2030. As I said yesterday, even then it
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: is way for thin, and how many times have we
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: been promised a surplus that doesn't eventuate? More times than
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I can count. Feels like a mirage. We'll find out
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: more about this after the fiscal update at the end
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of the month. October 11th, by the way, ACT is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: going to make its pitch for flatter tax rates. They're
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: releasing their alternative budget in October. And so we'll find
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: out more about what they have to say about it.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Then New Zealand First is working on a foreign investment
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: tax incentive. The Nats are looking at changes to the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: R & D tax credit. So tax cuts, rather than
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: just hikes, are on the election agenda. but not quite
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: worth getting particularly excited about at this point, I have
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to say. Too many hoops to jump through, hills to
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: climb and water to go under bridges before this becomes
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a serious pitch to voters, something they should actually start
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: thinking about and factoring into a decision before November.