But the Government introduced legislation to allow companies to charge GST at the lower rate for invoices up until October 11 for goods and services provided before October 1. Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said it was regrettable that companies had decided to ignore the new legislation, which would have saved their customers money.
GST is charged on everything all the time every month. Every time anyone buys anything anywhere, GST must be calculated and handled by people who need to be paid to do this - twice in fact, once by business and once by bureaucrats. If you really want to complain about GST, there are much better targets than businesses who don't hire extra accounting staff every time the government has a whim.
I agree that trying to learn a completely new system for just one month is ridiculous. And as business owners, they are trying to make a profit. What do they care if their customers could save some money? That doesn't serve their purposes.
ReplyDeleteIf I were going to complain about GST, I would do it via the "tax cut". National's tax cuts that give the majority of NZers about $5 or less every week, whilst all consumer goods have risen in price. $5 extra doesn't go very far after that.
That said, raising GST or cutting taxes will not get NZ out of any economic problems it's having. It'll take a lot more than that.