How to discourage wealth

Simon Robertson has been considering French eating habits – here, a rare tartare burger earlier this week. (Image: Simon Robertson)

Simon Robertson

Sat, 20 Apr 2024

“Let them eat cake” was a quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the bride of France’s King Louis XVI.With that callous remark, the queen became a hated symbol of the decadent monarchy and fuelled the revolution that would cause her to (literally) lose her head several years later.However, there are times when allowing the populace to eat cake might make sense. The tax treatment of foreign investments is one such example.The damage caused by New Zealand’s Foreign Investment Fund (FIF) taxation regime.As it’s ta...

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