Thursday 2 June 2005

IRD approval for your spouse

When income tax was first introduced in the US in 1913 -- a constitutional amendment was required for its introduction -- one Senatorial opponent declared "A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business; the eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house . . ." And so it has been there, and so it is here in New Zealand.

That prying eye and government hand is now taken for granted in our businesses, so much so that when the NZ IRD send this out in their latest 'Payroll News' they presumably expect barely an eye will be raised in response:
If you employ your spouse or civil union partner in your business (unless your business is a company) you will need approval from us to pay them wages.
Happy with that?

1 comment:

ZenTiger said...

One of the attractions of Fair Tax is that the government no longer gets to look at your finances and you no longer have to spend time explaining it to them.

The concept is simple: All company and income tax is abolished, and you only pay a GST of around 20%.

The amount of bureaucracy it would cut out is also astounding.

I suppose those are also the very reasons it would never be allowed.