E-Business Letter
Hi there, and welcome to the spring edition of my e-business newsletter.
Topics covered include:
- Food prices rise, record surplus but still no tax cuts in sight
- Regulatory creep and growing compliance costs
- New spam legislation
- RMA changes badly needed
Labour hoarding our hard-earned money
The $8.7 billion surplus announced recently shows once and for all that, the Labour Government is determined to hoard New Zealanders hard-earned money for its election year kitty. Yet as day-to-day life gets harder for the average New Zealander with households being squeezed by price increases in basic goods and services the Government still refuses to offer any tax relief.
For the Government to be sitting on this huge surplus while householders are having to dig increasingly deeper just for daily essentials like petrol is simply unfair We don’t think this is good enough. Taxpayers should be able to decide what they want to do with their own money.
New Zealanders deserve real tax relief – not lollynomics to buy votes in next year’s election.
Regulatory Creep and Growing Compliance Costs
A KPMG study recently found that NZ business compliance costs were well over $2 billion a year. Despite this, the last 9 years have seen an explosion of new regulations and paperwork, much aimed at small businesses. Compliance costs are now around $2,400 per employee for a small business under 10 staff.
Labour promised to address this ‘regulatory creep’ with its Quality Regulation Review. Recently released, this review failed to address any of the big areas of concern for business. Excessive regulation surrounding ACC, employment law, and the Holidays Act were all ignored.
New Zealand has no independent body overseeing regulatory practices to ensure that they are as streamlined and efficient as possible. It’s not surprising then that almost every business survey taken says the same thing – that Kiwi businesses are over-burdened with regulation.
The problem is urgent and ‘regulatory creep’ needs to be addressed by the Government. But, they’ve had nine years and haven’t managed it, so I’m not holding my breath!
New Spam Legalisation
After an amnesty period of six months, the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act came into force last month. This means that it is now illegal to send email or text adverts to anyone without prior consent.
All businesses need to ensure they have consent from customers and contacts to send them promotional communications. Businesses caught spending spam can face a fine so make sure you’re up to date with the new law and its requirements. And if for any reason you want to unsubscribe from How’s Business just follow the simple instructions at the end of this email.
For more information check out: http://www.antispam.govt.nz/
Resource Management Act - changes under National
National proposes simplifying and streamlining the processes of the RMA Act to reduce the delays, uncertainties and costs. We want less litigation and more science in decision-making. Read more.
Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter.
Please feel free to email me your thoughts at [email protected]
Nathan Guy
National Party MP