Andrew Nicholl

And again, we're not raising taxes here.

We're just redistributing how we're taking them.

If I were thinking about, if I just wanted to pay as little tax as possible, then I'd just pay myself a modest salary, I'd pay my bills out of the business, and then I'd sell my business for a huge profit at the end because I've built up all this wealth in my business.

So I kind of think like actually- But that's getting taxed now under this.

No, but your argument is, oh no, all these business owners, you know, just struggling away.

No, they can rort the system because they just pay themselves less.

They don't pay much income tax and then they sell their massive valuable asset and tax free.

Oh, you love to rort it.

So I think the big thing is we've got to think about how far behind New Zealand is when we're kind of considering these things.

So New Zealand is the outlier when it comes to the OECD countries because we're one of the only countries that still doesn't have a capital gains tax.

31 out of 38 members, just over 80%, they have a comprehensive capital gains tax.

They can figure out this complex system that you're saying is going to ruin us.

And if you look at Tax Justice Aotearoa's research, Australia, the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, they've all got capital gains tax.

None of their economies have collapsed yet.

Okay, Costa Rica, 15% flat rate.

See, I think that makes it so easy, just a flat rate that you pay when you sell an asset.

Okay, what else have we got?

And I do agree with you that there are some complex structures, like Norway's gains are 1.72 factor to 37.84 effective.

Like, just make it easy.

Just make it a flat rate.