Four innovative young professionals have been selected as finalists in this year’s Tax Policy Scholarship Competition, a biannual prize hosted by the Tax Policy Charitable Trust.
The fifth edition of the competition, which supports the development of innovative tax policy research and thinking in Aotearoa New Zealand, is underway.
The Tax Policy Scholarship competition runs every two years to showcase the next generation of tax leaders. Entrants under the age of 35 are invited to propose changes to our tax system, analysing weaknesses in the current model and unintended consequences from existing tax rules.
Participants were invited to propose creative tax solutions backed by reasoned research and analysis. The competition attracted outstanding submissions from young professionals and bold ideas to overhaul inefficiencies in our system.
This year’s judges:
- Joanne Hodge – Former tax partner at Bell Gully and a member of the 2017 Tax Working Group
- Craig Elliffe – Professor of Law at The University of Auckland and a member of the 2017 Tax Working Group
- Nick Clark – Senior Fellow, Economics and Advocacy at The New Zealand Initiative
- Chris Cunniffe – Strategic Advisor at TMNZ (retired CEO, TMNZ)
The 2024 submissions showcased the bright future of the tax profession in New Zealand. We’re thrilled to announce the four finalists for this year’s award.
Our four finalists
Matthew Handford
Matthew is a Tax Solicitor at Mayne Wetherell. His submission was ‘ TLC for the Tax System’.
‘TLC’ stands for an independent Tax Law Commission to restore the Generic Tax Policy Process (GTTP). Matthew believes restoring GTTP would improve the quality of New Zealand tax law.
Under Matthew’s proposal, a TLC, independent of Inland Revenue, would have a standing mandate to systematically review the operation of New Zealand’s tax laws and make recommendations for their improvement.
Claudia Siriwardena
Claudia is a Senior Tax Consultant at Deloitte. Her submission proposed changes to New Zealand’s Fringe Benefit Tax regime.
Claudia said the current system was too complex and imposed high compliance costs on employers. She proposed a new small business FBT regime to simplify the rules around motor vehicles and unclassified benefits, reducing compliance costs and increasing revenue integrity.
Her proposal would also amend the current unclassified benefits rules to target only benefits provided to employees that would reasonably be viewed as provided in connection with their employment.
Matthew Seddon
Matthew is a lawyer at Bell Gully. His proposal focused on the underreporting of tax by independent contractors. Matthew said statistics showed that contractors underreport roughly 20% of their taxable income.
Matthew suggests withholding taxes should be extended to payments received by independent contractors engaged by persons with an existing PAYE withholding obligation (i.e., employers) and to those operating through electronic marketplaces. The withholding tax obligation would be at a 20% rate.
Andrew Paynter
Andrew works as a Policy Advisor at Inland Revenue. His submission focused on extracting more tax revenue in New Zealand without negatively impacting lower and middle-income earners.
Andrew noted the effectiveness of the GST in capturing tax. His suggestion is to increase the GST rate to 17.5% and introduce a GST refund tax credit for low- and middle-income individuals.
The GST refund credit would be a means-tested individualised credit paid at a flat rate to all resident individuals under a particular income threshold.
Selecting this year’s winner
The finalists were announced on July 4 at an event at Generator Auckland.
Each of the four will go on to develop a 4,000-word submission on their proposal, presenting their final idea and answering questions at a function on Tuesday 22 October in Wellington. The winner will be announced that evening.
Former winners debate the future of tax
The event to announce this year’s finalists also featured a panel discussion on the future of tax, featuring some of our past competition winners.
An engaging panel discussion on the sufficiency of New Zealand’s tax revenue was chaired by tax expert Geof Nightingale.
Our panel included:
- Matt Woolley (Senior Associate, Quigg Partners)
- Nigel Jemson (Director, Tax, PwC)
- Talia Harvey (Senior Policy Advisor, Inland Revenue)
- Vivien Lei (Senior Group Tax Advisor, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare)
Exploring current tax revenue sources and options for the future, the panel shared ideas on what the future of tax might look like in New Zealand.
Themes that were canvassed during the discussion and audience Q&A included:
- The sustainability of New Zealand Superannuation under its current settings; options for changing those settings could include indexing to inflation rather than to wages, increasing the age of eligibility, and means-testing.
- Key tax trends to watch and their connections to productivity. For example, a capital gains tax could make the tax system fairer and more equitable, but could also impact investment, entrepreneurship, and the flow of capital into the economy. It was also noted that environmental taxes were a “hot” trend in Europe. Taxes on items like plastic packaging could change behaviours and encourage efficiency improvements, leading to productivity gains and helping to address environmental issues.
- The opportunity to increase tax revenues by better ensuring that tax owing under existing law is collected. It is well known that during the last few years, Inland Revenue has been less visible in its audit and investigatory work. A greater focus on audit and investigation work could be expected to identify areas of non-compliance and encourage greater levels of compliance in future.
- The importance of economic growth and increased productivity in growing tax revenues. History has shown that growing the economy can lead to increased tax revenues to an extent that might far exceed the impact of new taxes.
Former Tax Policy Scholarship Competition winner and current Tax Policy Charitable Trust committee member Vivien Lei said it was “an honour to be on such an amazing panel”.
Finalists honoured
Brendan Brown, chair of the Tax Policy Charitable Trust, said the panel discussion highlighted both the talent and strong level of interest in the New Zealand tax system among up and coming tax professionals. He thanked the panellists (former winners of the Tax Policy Scholarship Competition) and Geof Nightingale as panel chair, for sharing their ideas in what was a thought-provoking discussion.
“I would also like to congratulate the four finalists in this year’s competition, and to thank everyone who entered the competition for their work in formulating their proposals. Participating in the competition and initiatives like it not only contributes to a better tax system but also provides excellent opportunities for those who participate.”
“The Tax Policy Charitable Trust was established some 12 years ago to encourage future tax policy leaders and lead tax policy thinking in New Zealand. I’d like to acknowledge the generosity of Ian Kuperus, the founder of TMNZ, in establishing the trust, and TMNZ for its tremendous support in enabling events like this to happen.”
Find out more about the Tax Policy Scholarship Competition here.
