Sob.

i make a post in vague agreement with oob and i get ignored.

sob.

You shouldn't do that... think of the angels Hannoir.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree (I was taking the piss before about taxing them to the bone). I really think there should be positive incentives for wealthy people to stay in New Zealand, and particularly to invest in the New Zealand economy so that we don't need to be too reliant on overseas forms of capital.

Currently, I think the tax rate is actually pretty solid, and on an international level is so low that I don't think we have a good reason to be concerned about it. We don't have high levels of capital flight, as you get in countries with excessively high tax rates (like most of the rest of the world).

Part of my 'welfarist'/Statist philosophy is that I am actually scared that putting too much in the hands of too few makes the long term outlook way too unstable. Spreading the load will even the strain, and if the State is able to roughly guide economic development in a state through money it gains through tax and other things, I think that's the ideal situation where you allow the wealthy to enjoy their money, just not too much, and the poor to live a decent life that is not miserable nor downtrodden.

It's also not efficent to produce 10 thousand humans that aren't productive. You'll get people like me grumbling that effort is being wasted. (Cruel) Social reaction.

Fair enough.

What gets me is that these tax rates that we have are designed to affect the middle class as well as the rich. $60k pa is middle class NZ. $100k is middle class NZ.

What was the figure in the US?... that ~38% of the wealth is held by ~1% of the pop? Something tells me that the people earning $100k/year aren't in that 1%, they are not even remotely near it! The upper tax rates should really kick in at higher thresholds, e.g. $50k for 33% and $75k or $100k for %39. Overall this won't make much of a difference to the coffers, considering that most of the wealth is elsewhere, yet it'll make that much more of a difference to the individual.

Well, the middle classes in New Zealand are not beset by poverty. The rate changes that you stated, which correspond with National Party policy, in my opinion would lower state revenue an unacceptable degree. I really don't see what the problem is with the status quo, hell, if anything, we should create more tax rungs around the current ones that do take the pressure off lower middle classes while increase the pressure on the upper middle class and upper class of income earners.

By that reasoning most of the income surely cannot be held by such a small percent of the population, otherwise the tax level changes wouldn't matter.

But the middle classes in New Zealand are a large portion of the population, so I don't really understand what you're saying.

So you'd agree that the majority of the wealth isn't held by a few?

Not at all. Economic statistics clearly show the top decline (so the top 10% of earners) earn roughly 25% of the national household income in New Zealand per year.

And so what is the minimum income to be part of this luxurious 10%?

Roughly at 90,000.

So really you could still lift the upper threshold to say $70k without much difference.

But you'd have a large loss of revenue, agreed?

Yeah I agree with that. I'm actually quite suprised at how low of a income you need to be in the top 10%. Makes virtually all professionals, doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, etc... seem incredibly wealthy compared to those below them. Yet they still seem to be dwarfed the big guys. I guess the division is wider in the US.

Well, the last statistics I saw were for 1999 (and it around 90,000 in my source). I think it really proves that earning over 100,000 a year of income is extremely unusual, which is part of the reason why it's only logical to oppose shifting the tax brackets higher if the revenue loss would be huge.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown per 10k or so, I might have a hunt around the stats site when I get time.

Do you mean proportions of people earning income within each 10,000 block as per the population?

It's quite interesting seeing people's reactions to the fact that in New Zealand the average yearly income is about $30,000 a year, and in fact the reaction tends to be a good guide of the socio-economic status of the person (shock typically indicating being from a very wealthy background that normalises income of over $100,000 per annum).

Is that per person or per family?

The 30,000 figure is for personal income within the workforce, I believe (Though that's worth double checking, as it's quite an old figure from the 90's). 100,000 in the context I mentioned is for household income.

Yeah that's about what I would have expected.

It's pretty easy for any 2 graduates to live in a 100k + household. I think I read somewhere that the average income for someone with a degree or higher is about 45k.

And I'd say the majority of New Zealanders do not have a degree.