{"id":641295,"date":"2026-10-25T23:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T23:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/641295\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T23:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T23:30:12","slug":"kiwisaver-2-0-proposal-targets-self-employed-new-zealanders-the-prosperity-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/641295\/","title":{"rendered":"KiwiSaver 2.0 proposal targets self-employed New Zealanders \u2013 The Prosperity Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

He told Nadine Higgins on The Prosperity Project<\/a> podcast that unlike other countries that have struggled to deal with self-employed worker contributions, the set-up of KiwiSaver has the tax department as its centre. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow it would mechanically work is it\u2019s like when you pay provisional tax as you\u2019re going through a year, you will have, as part of that, your KiwiSaver. You\u2019ll have to pay that throughout the year, as part of your quarterly provisional tax filings or your GST returns.\u201d <\/p>\n

Unlike employees, who receive contributions from their employer, self-employed workers would have to fund the entire amount themselves. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to retire as well with dignity,\u201d Whineray says. <\/p>\n

Under his proposal, all contributions would be wound back to 2% initially and gradually increase to 12% over 20 years. <\/p>\n

He acknowledges raising contribution rates could mean higher prices for customers, smaller pay rises or reduced business profits but argues the costs of compulsory contributions would be spread across the economy. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s pleased to see political parties paying attention to KiwiSaver this election \u201cIt feels like KiwiSaver\u2019s time has come up for discussion. It\u2019s 20 years old. It\u2019s got great brand strength.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, he says the challenge is securing sufficient political consensus to implement changes designed to last a lifetime. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t have something that has to run for 21, 22 elections \u2013 which is 0 to [age] 65 \u2013 be tinkered with again for the next 20 years.\u201d <\/p>\n

Watch or listen to the full episode of The Prosperity Project<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n

The Prosperity Project is hosted by Nadine Higgins, an experienced broadcaster and financial adviser.<\/p>\n

Follow the show at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He told Nadine Higgins on The Prosperity Project podcast that unlike other countries that have struggled to deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2327,138,124,23966,89278,4748,12620,6964,117,111,139,69,196336,3263,17159,20586,294,7493,11590,149367,18916,14738,8220,223,102,24750],"class_list":["post-641295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-2327","tag-business","tag-could","tag-enough","tag-ensuring","tag-hiding","tag-inland","tag-kiwisaver","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plain","tag-project","tag-proposal","tag-prosperity","tag-retirement","tag-revenue","tag-save","tag-selfemployed","tag-sight","tag-solution","tag-targets","tag-the","tag-with","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641295","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=641295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}