David Parker must be a special kind of stupid. After the Prime Minister passed moral judgement on ute owners by suggesting that many people who drove utes were doing so illegitimately, and after we’ve discovered that the Government’s punitive ute tax will punish over a hundred thousand owners in the first year alone, he’s gone and poured gasoline on an already out of control electoral fire:
Double-cab ute owners might be getting an unexpected call from Inland Revenue to see if they are paying the right amount of tax, after Revenue Minister David Parker said he was considering a clampdown on the fringe benefit tax rules relating to utes.
Owners of double-cab utes famously pay very little fringe benefit tax (FBT), which is designed to make sure that employees pay tax on their work perks such as using a work car for personal use.
Documents released under the Official Information Act show Parker has received advice on how double-cab utes were taxed and Parker confirmed he was considering acting on it.
Parker said the advice from IRD was that double-cab ute owners weren’t exempt from paying FBT, despite a popular belief that there was an exemption in place. Instead, IRD thinks the existing rules aren’t being properly enforced.
NZ Herald
Talking about trying to put out the fire with gasoline. Perhaps David Parker is a big fan of David Bowie, after all, I doubt Chris Knox’s songs get much of a hearing in the Parker household.
The Government has now officially declared war on ute owners. I’m not sure that they can sustain the loss of hundreds of thousands of votes, but I do give them credit for ploughing ahead with dogmatic ideology doing what they mistakenly think is right. There is nothing more frightening than seeing the fervent zeal in the eyes of student politicians as they charge recklessly into the abyss.
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