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Fifty cent coins - Source: ONE News -
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A UMR Research poll of 750 people has found 56% are opposed to raising GST to 15% if income taxes were lowered at the same time.
Forty-one percent strongly opposed an increase and 15% "somewhat" opposed it.
Only 13% strongly supported an increase while 20% somewhat supported it. Eleven percent were unsure or did not know.
A ShapeNZ online survey, commissioned by the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, found 62% opposed raising GST while 22% supported it - 14% were neutral and 3% did not know. The opposition rose to 90% if GST were raised to 17.5% with just 4% in favour.
Of respondents 59% were not confident they would be adequately compensated through benefit rises and tax cuts if GST was increased. Only 12% were confident they would be adequately compensated while 29% were not sure.
Asked if they would be generally better or worse off as a result of a package which aligns top personal, company and trust tax rates at 33% or lower, increases GST to pay for this, introduces a new land tax and removes special depreciation allowances and tax avoidance opportunities, 47% said they would be worse off.
Only 9% thought they would be better off, while 22% said no better or worse and 22% not sure.
Key raised the possibility of GST increases in his opening statement to parliament last week, but ruled out a land tax.
Key says Tuesday's polls depended on how questions were asked.
The UMR Research telephone poll was conducted between February 4 and 9 and had a margin of error of 3.6%.
The ShapeNZ survey was based on views of 2,281 respondents and asked a range of questions following the Tax Working Group's recommendations for tax reform.
Other findings included:
- 56% supporting aligning top tax rates for personal incomes, companies and trusts (11% against).
- 41% supporting reducing company tax rates from 30% to 27% (26% against).
- 69% in favour of reducing lower marginal tax rates from 12.5% to 10% and 21% to 19% (8% against).
- 67% supporting removing depreciation allowances on buildings that do not depreciate (7% opposed, though when later questioned on applying this to industrial and commercial buildings support fell to 37% while 38% said they didn't know)
- 46% in favour of removing tax depreciation allowances on rental homes (17% against)
- 48% supported discontinuing the use of Loss Attributing Qualifying Companies (LAQCs) to split incomes to quality for Working for Families payments (16% said they should continue and 36% did not know).
- 48% supporting ending income splitting: stopping the self employed distributing income to family members, through companies and trusts, to lower their household's overall tax compared with other households with the same overall income from wages and salaries (22% wanted splitting to continue, 30% were unsure).
- 28% were both for and against the idea of broadening the tax base by introducing a comprehensive capital gains tax, 26% were neutral and 17% did not know.
- 56% said lowering top personal tax rates and a more broadly based tax system would improve New Zealand's attractiveness for people and investors.
- 59% opposed an annual tax on all land of 0.5% (17% supported, 22% were neutral, 10% did not know).
- 65% thought the current tax system was unfair (11% said it was fair) and 79% wanted reform.
- The majority of respondents said tax would influence their
vote next general election.
