Amount of Tax Revenue

"New Zealand’s revenue from tax represents a much smaller proportion of GDP than countries we like to compare ourselves too such as Germany and Finland. Do you think that New Zealand is a highly taxed country? If so, why?"

"According Treasury’s Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update tax revenue is forecast to be $3 billion lower than expected this year (2023), thanks mostly to falling corporate profits and tax payments, and $6.4 billion lower across the next four years. Since tax revenue is already down, is cutting it still further really sensible?"

Answer

Information to support the question 1:

Many countries that we compare ourselves with in the OECD devote a greater proportion of their GDP to revenue gained from tax. Germany for instance takes 38% as tax to spend on public services. Austria, the Netherlands, some Scandinavian countries, even more. You can find information on our tax system here.

Information to support the question 2:

You can read Max Rashbrooke’s commentary on Prefu here.