It captures a bunch of revenue from tourists that otherwise would be harder to capture; tourists see the price and don't think about the tax that they are contributing to the NZ economy. So tourists in Queenstown are helping to pay for hospitals in Auckland.

It captures some of the proceeds of crime; I know we want to reduce crime as much as possible; it is a fact of life, the GST helps to get some of that money back. It is a bad bargain but is better than nothing.

Adding carve outs in the GST scheme for fresh fruit etc, is a bad idea. In NZ the effective GST rate (15% - admin costs of the system) is something like 14.8% I couldn't find the article that was from, I read it a few years ago. Compare that to the effective VAT in the UK, which is around 16% when they pay 20% in VAT on most stuff.

[–] BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There are better ways to capture tourist dollars than GST though. Same goes for proceeds of crime (which isn't that important because it's such a tiny portion of the economy).

You can't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

[–] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What ways are effective for capturing tourist dollars?

I agree that GST is a regressive tax that overly targets the lower income earners. But it does serve a purpose

[–] BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz 1 points 3 days ago

You can charge more for visas, you can have airport taxes, you can levy a fee on museums, huts, trails and such, you can place taxes on tour operators and guides etc.

There are lots of options.