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So, we are well and truly into election year now, with most of the early running seeming to come from jockeying within the coalition partners rather than a focus on the opposition, who seem happy to sit back and tell us, well, not much, about what they might actually do.

With time still on the clock, I wanted to throw out a few thoughts and ideas that maybe, just maybe, could land with a few of the parties vying for our votes.

Dear National, thank you for reinstating interest deductibility on residential lending. Great, that had to happen. But enough already with the residential loss ring-fencing rules. You know this policy is unfair. Singling out one sector of the economy only to deny loss offsets smacks of tax law motivated by nothing more than trying to manipulate the property market.

As investors face rising interest rates as the Reserve Bank is again forced to curb the war-related inflation pressures, rents are falling across the country and house prices have fallen to well within the grasp of first home buyers. Is it really still necessary to prevent an investor from netting a legitimate loss off against other income when they have no control over the main drivers of that loss?

In NZ we have traditionally all enjoyed the fairness of our “weighing the bag” principle, where you are taxed on the weight of your bag based on the sand being poured in at the top minus the sand escaping through the hole in the bottom.

It’s no longer appropriate to tax residential investors based on the sand flowing into their bag but then ignore the rip where the sand is pouring out.

Dear Labour, ok, fair enough, there is a valid argument that a capital gains tax could relieve the burden in the shrinking pool of workers doing the heavy lifting through PAYE on wages. But if you are going to have a CGT, make it universal, enough with targeting only property.

Speculation in the equities, crypto, and precious metals sectors is rife and the vast majority goes completely untaxed, where we have an entire compliance division already focused on the already compliant property sector.

Why not target the sectors that have had no audit activity for years and enforce the rules we already have that are presently being virtually universally ignored?

The entire funds management sector bases its fees on the value of funds under management rather than the income returns the funds generate, motivating it to chase capital gains rather than income, and yet these gains that are regularly realised would not be taxed under your CGT.

And please, in a falling property market, don’t insult our intelligence by suggesting a property-focused CGT would somehow pay for free doctors’ visits. You have no idea what a CGT would yield as it relies firstly on property values rising, secondly, on properties being sold, and thirdly, the sales exceeding the value of the properties when the tax is introduced. None of which you can predict.

If you really do want a CGT to make the tax system fairer, shouldn’t the quid pro quo be reduced tax rates for workers rather than dangle a carrot like free doctors’ visits? Or are you just going to keep the high tax rates on workers as well?

Dear Opportunities Party, I looked to you with the hope of a new fresh idea, but what did I find? A promise to return us to the failed and universally hated land tax. A high compliance cost tax we have already had in NZ that was rejected as an abject failure. I still carry scars from my days as a junior accountant from the injuries sustained when I handed clients their land tax return and the invoice for preparing it!

1.75% on land values and .5% on farms, why the rate difference? You say to ensure fairness! The one thing a split rate does is guarantee unfairness.

And why would you seek to wreak this disaster on the property sector again? … There it is, “to make housing more affordable by curbing speculation”. So, tax policy designed again to manipulate the housing market to meet a social agenda.

When will you appreciate that property speculation is already taxed in NZ and the level of compliance scrutiny is already higher than for any other sector of the economy. And property investment is not property speculation. Enough already, grow up.

Dear Greens, your goal I accept, end poverty in NZ. But taxing high income earners at 45% simply drives them out of NZ. We need them here creating jobs, more than ever.

A 2.5% wealth tax, well at least you are proposing to include shares as well as property, but taxing assets regardless of what they are earning is like throwing a rock into a pond and gleefully waiting to see the damage it does to the shoreline. Watch the ACC ads, stop, think, before you step.

Why do none of the party tax policies state the obvious, that we need a fair tax policy that generates enough government revenue to operate our country at a surplus and reduce our ever-expanding debt burden?

Tax law that seeks to manipulate the property market for some social goal is just not good tax law. Stop trying to make winners and losers. Keep it fair, keep it universal and get us back to surplus so we can nail this debt burden.

Try that, there just might be votes in it.