In 1999-2000, smokers paid $950 million in excise, according to Treasury's 2001 Tax Review, and it is now more than $1.1 billion. Treatment, by comparison, is estimated at $225m. About 70 per cent of the price of tobacco is tax.The dairy owner told me it's closer to 66 per cent. Either way, it's the largest tax rape on any good or service in NZ.
Our tax system may be broken, but the middle class addiction of property investment is being ignored. Meantime, the working class suckers are looking at getting hit by a GST rise and tax spiking on tobacco.
What a fiscal creep.
