{"id":564143,"date":"2026-08-09T22:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564143\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T22:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:36:09","slug":"prime-minister-christopher-luxon-eyes-fuel-excise-accommodation-levy-and-banks-for-possible-tax-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564143\/","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Christopher Luxon eyes fuel excise, accommodation levy and banks for possible tax change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat we\u2019re not doing is going off bananas on a wealth tax or capital gains tax, which will just absolutely, absolutely wreck the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pushed on whether other new taxes could be introduced, Luxon said work had been done looking at a bank tax that had been mentioned in the lead-up to the Budget, but no decision had been made.<\/p>\n

However, just three months ago the Government announced in the Budget that banks would be slapped with a new levy to fund their regulation. <\/p>\n

Opposition parties had proposed eight new taxes and \u201cquite serious radical reform stuff\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, capital gains, wealth tax, land tax, inheritance, gift tax, you know, the whole nine yards. Increasing income tax rates and increasing corporate taxes. We\u2019re not doing any of that stuff, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a tumultuous fortnight for Luxon amid various communications fumbles, including surprising his MPs<\/a> and coalition partners by announcing National would campaign on holding a referendum on MMP.<\/p>\n

Act and New Zealand First appeared to be blindsided by those comments<\/a>, which came in response to a text from a Newstalk ZB listener.<\/p>\n

NZ First leader Winston Peters called the referendum proposal \u201cinexplicable\u201d and a \u201cpower grab\u201d as he claimed Labour and National were \u201closing their grip on power\u201d.<\/p>\n

Act leader David Seymour said he wasn\u2019t opposed to a referendum but suggested Luxon \u201cmay not have thought through what he\u2019s saying\u201d regarding a preference for ministers from his own party.<\/p>\n

National also recommitted to its budget responsibility rules on Sunday, prioritising a return to surplus in 2028\/9, getting debt down to 40% of GDP, and keeping taxes low, reducing core Crown spending to 30% of GDP.<\/p>\n

The party did not rule out new taxes although, when pushed, National finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said the party would not impose new taxes on \u201cworking people\u201d, small businesses or pensioners.<\/p>\n

National also revealed its party list<\/a> on the weekend, with the top eight unchanged from current rankings.<\/p>\n

While the Herald\u2019s latest Poll of Polls<\/a> shows the current Opposition\u2019s chances of winning the election are slim, the rise of Opportunity could give the left bloc a path to power.<\/p>\n

National last month ruled out working with Opportunity<\/a> due to their tax plans, although the minor party says it\u2019s still willing to work with either side.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Labour is dismissing a Taxpayers\u2019 Union Curia poll showing support for the party falling to 27.8%, the lowest since December 2024. The poll, conducted over August 1-4, had Opportunity on 6.1% \u2013 enough to enter Parliament with eight seats.<\/p>\n

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the party was \u201cnot focused on rogue polls\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat we\u2019re not doing is going off bananas on a wealth tax or capital gains tax, which will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62925,95,22509,1643,1396,1558,12974,16426,23788,124,16639,180420,2753,2082,2678,68690,4493,13489,96885,16427,1362,6722,3556,111,43,139,69,7234,17398,415,3048,24117,109060,7496,2373,1361,540],"class_list":["post-564143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accommodation","tag-and","tag-areas","tag-bank","tag-banks","tag-been","tag-change","tag-christopher","tag-consider","tag-could","tag-decisions","tag-excise","tag-eyes","tag-for","tag-fuel","tag-havent","tag-increased","tag-leader","tag-levy","tag-luxon","tag-made","tag-minister","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-partys","tag-possible","tag-prime","tag-said","tag-settings","tag-stressed","tag-tax","tag-taxes","tag-that","tag-where"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}