Ground-breaking study shows the wealthy pay less tax

Revenue minister David Parker says the findings do not mean immediate tax reforms. (Image: Getty)

Wed, 26 Apr 2023

The first serious attempt to show how failing to tax wealth skews the tax system against low and middle income earners shows wealthy New Zealanders pay tax at about half the rate of the average taxpayer.The headline finding of the Inland Revenue Department’s (IRD) two-year High-Wealth Individuals Research Project (HWIRP) is that the median effective tax rate paid by the 311 wealthy people in the survey is 8.9%, compared to an effective tax rate of 22% for a person earning $80,000 a year, with no other income, based on data from 2015 to 20...

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