Figures show the correction was not small. The Green Party has revised its flagship tax policy after a costing error put its projected net revenue roughly $800 million too high over the forecast period, a mistake the party’s co-leader called a typo.
The error sat in a single line: about $100 million a year set aside to fund Inland Revenue for administering and enforcing the new taxes was added to total revenue, when it should have been recorded as a cost. The party re-issued its policy document on Monday after journalists from RNZ and 1News raised questions. In its corrected form, net revenue comes to $5.15 billion for 2027/28, reaching $5.73 billion by 2030/31. The earlier version had put the figures at $5.35 billion and $5.94 billion.
Chlöe Swarbrick, the party’s co-leader, accepted the error while insisting the numbers still worked. “There was a typo,” she said, adding that “our figures still stack up.” An economist who reviewed the costings for the party, Brad Olsen of Infometrics, said the error was regrettable but “not material to the taxation elements.”
The underlying package is ambitious. The Greens propose a 2.5% annual wealth tax on net assets above the $10 million mark, a 33% charge on inheritances and gifts over $1 million, a $10,000 tax-free income threshold, and a new 45% top rate on income above $160,000, replacing the current 39% rate. The party says 96% of New Zealanders would receive a tax cut.
The correction is the second stumble in the policy’s rollout, after the plan appeared on the party’s website hours ahead of its scheduled launch. National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown called the package “a smorgasbord of new taxes” and dismissed it as “economic lunacy.”
Sources
- Greens correct $800m tax policy error, Swarbrick calls it a 'typo'
- Greens change tax policy costings after mistake put it out by $800m | RNZ
