Last weekend United Future released its tax reform policy. Party leader, Peter Dunne, set out the key elements of the tax policy: income up to $12,000 taxed at 10%; income between $12,001 and $38,000 taxed at 20%; income above $38,000 taxed at 30%; Income splitting for parents with dependent children; Honoraria for volunteers up to $1,000 to be tax free; and Gift duty to be abolished.
Dunne says that United Future has carefully costed the impact of these policies and in a full year, they would cost $4.5 billion. "Looking at the tax cuts alone for a family on $45,000 a year, from 1 October this year, they will get a tax cut of $33 a fortnight. Under UnitedFuture's plans, the same family would get a tax cut of $45 a fortnight. Couple that with UnitedFuture's income splitting plan, and the tax cut rises to $87 a fortnight." Further details are available at www.unitedfuture.org.nz
Parents' Choice welcomes United Future's reiteration of its support for Income Splitting. We also welcome tax relief for kiwi families who are finding it increasingly difficult to cover the cost of fuel and food price rises. We note that the government's Budget tax policies contained $10billion of tax cuts targeted at low and middle income earners. www.labour.org.nz for more details.
We await with interest the National Party's tax reform plan. www.national.org.nz
National Party Finance Spokesperson, Bill English,has responded to a letter from Parents Choice indicating that while National would continue to discuss the issue at this stage they did not support it on the basis that under Income Splitting the benefits would not get to the right people. 
