The Herald & Radio NZ owe the nation an apology. Their reporting has hit new lows. No wonder people don't trust the Main Stream Media.
Yesterday they reported on their front pages, "Labour closing in on National in latest Ipsos issues poll, with 65% support for capital gains tax". At best it's a misleading headline; at worst it's a blatant untruth. Then they go on to say, in a bit more detail, that the Ipsos Poll "found almost two-thirds of NZ'ers support a capital gains tax in some form". But Ipsos never asked its 1,000 survey respondents the question, "Do you support a capital gains tax in some form?" And wording in surveys is everything. Every word matters, since it can bias respondents.
In fact, Ipsos asked, "Would you support the introduction of a Capital Gains Tax in the following situations? (1) Sale of an investment property? (2) Sale of a business? (3) Sales of other assets like boats, cars & paintings? (4) Sale of a family home". The proportions supporting were 57%, 43%, 22% and 13%, respectively. There's only majority support for one asset class - investment properties - and NZ already has capital taxes on investment properties (ones that come under the bright-line test).
Faced with this failure to show much public support for capital taxes, what Ipsos (sneakily) did & the Herald (sneakily) reported does not come from the answer to a survey question - instead it comes from a calculation that was made up, contrived - being adding up the number of people who ticked any one (or more) of the above 4 categories. That's how they arrived at their "65% support capital gains in one of these forms" number.
To see how misleading is the Herald's story (journos also confronted the PM with the "65% support number") then answer the following question: do you think that only 35% of Kiwis oppose Capital Gains Taxes (being 100% minus 65%)? That would be wrong. The answers to the question, "Would you not support the introduction of a Capital Gains Tax in the following situations? (1) Sale of an investment property; (2) Sale of a business; (3) Sales of other assets like boats, cars and paintings; (4) Sale of a family home", are 32%, 41%, 64% and 78% of respondents (not in support). So majorities in 2 out of 4 categories.
Although Big Media did not report it, I estimate about 90% of Kiwis object to Capital Gains Taxes being charged on at least one of these asset classes (often several). Whereas the Herald reported that Ipsos "found almost two-thirds of New Zealanders support a capital gains tax in some form", the headline could equally have been Ipsos "found almost 90% of New Zealanders oppose a capital gains tax in some form".
Big Media's Plot to get capital taxes put in and Labour re-elected on that platform makes me suspect it's in cahoots with Labour at some horribly unpleasant & disturbing level, one that needs investigation.
Sources:
Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. Rob blogs at Down to Earth Kiwi