David @ Tokyo

I read today in the news that the National Party would introduce tax rebates for money spent on childcare by families with both mum and dad working.

This is surely good for the ACT party, which proposes a tax cut for every taxpayer in New Zealander.

National on the other hand, is proposing to still take your money, but then give it back to you, only if the family has kids, with both mum and dad choosing to working, and choosing to fork out cash for childcare.

So what does the single hard-working person get?
What does the married hard-working but childless couple get?
What does the family with just a single bread-winner slogging it out get?

Nothing yet! At least with National that is. We can but hold our breath for further policy announcement, but this seems like a poor start.
On the other hand
- a vote for ACT would be a vote for them to be paying 15% for income up to 38,000, and 25% on income above that.
- Treasury says this policy is possible without cutting current spending levels.
- ACT will work to introduce policy that would prevent government spending levels outstripping growth and inflation, that would invariably neccessitate future tax rate increases

More than anything, ACT policy trusts New Zealanderes to spend their own money better than the big stupid government ever can.