Night is settling, the last flitters of a piwakawaka glimpsed between tall trunks of manuka almost gone, hazy now, no dimension to put a hand around to grasp. I wait for you to come down the hill, walking ginger on the path, trusting in normal sense. I lean into the night, listening for the clink clunk of the latch. Still here.
Monthly Archives: July 2023
GST on new build homes means people are borrowing to pay a tax
13th March 2019
I want to open up another front in New Zealand’s “great tax debate” of 2019, it’s the 15% GST on new build homes.
Consider a new home advertised on the market for $600,000. Included in that price is GST of $78,261. The tax is collected by the property developer on behalf of the government, but is paid by the end consumer, the owner-occupier of the home. That’s a big chunk of tax. Worse, a first home buyer taking out a mortgage is going to be borrowing to pay it. Say you manage a $50,000 deposit, leaving $550,000 to pay back to the bank over 30 years. The GST component of your outstanding debt will be $71,739. Taking ASB’s current floating interest rate of 5.8%, you would be paying $79,796 in interest on the GST alone. More than double the original tax calculated on the value of the home. Your tax bill has effectively ballooned to $158,000. The extra eighty grand doesn’t go to the government, of course, it’s more income for the bank.
That’s the scenario for a new build, but it doesn’t stop there. Old houses are renovated, extended and maintained over time. Homeowners pay GST on building materials and labour by plumbers, chippies, electricians, etc. The GST incurred will be factored into the asking price when people sell.
It’s also true that GST on new builds has an influence on the price of all homes. The seller of an older home next door to a new build which has 15 per cent taxed on to the asking price has room to ask for more for the house they’re selling. A degree of market equalisation across new builds and existing homes is going to take place.
It’s reasonable to conclude that GST on new builds, as well as GST on work done on existing homes, is contributing to all homes being more expensive. The mortgage payments of Kiwis are therefore higher, and the profits of the big four Aussie banks which dominate mortgage lending that much greater. International shareholders of those same banks are, I’m sure, grateful for our largesse.
You’d think this would be national outrage, but there’s complete silence. The final report by the Tax Working Group rejected making any exemptions to GST. Even though exemptions and variable rates are the norm for countries that have a goods and services tax. New Zealand is the odd one out.
Defenders of GST tell us that it’s simple and shouldn’t be tampered with. That’s its beauty, they say. Perhaps banks can appreciate its beauty, but working your arse off to pay a mortgage that includes substantial interest on a tax, seems the most ugly of taxes to me. It’s fundamentally unjust to have to borrow to pay a tax. That goes for houses, but also cars, washing machines, funerals, and any other item people are forced, out of necessity, to borrow for.
Here’s a challenge, then. Maybe all the politicians, columnists and media pundits horrified at the thought of having to pay tax on capital income, could summon the same outrage for GST’s impact on the unaffordable housing market. They might want to look at Britain, where their goods and service tax doesn’t apply to building materials and labour on new properties. Or they might refer to the GST rebate Canada has recently introduced to lower the price of new homes. Or perhaps we don’t have to look to overseas examples and conclude for ourselves that GST is a mongrel of a tax.
Borrowing to pay tax, when some people are making fortunes and not paying tax, just shows how obscenely weighted in favour of capital wealth our tax system is.
The bread factory by the school gates
Every drop-off then was the smell
of hot bread from the ovens
behind the factory walls, made grey
in the memory by it always being wet
and dark, head-lights on.
When I drive past the road today
the smell of fresh baked bread
still breaks out of those same walls,
now Newberry’s Funeral Home,
where the ovens are hotter and sealed tight.
For no more than the symmetry,
it’s at Newberry’s I can be dropped-off
on a weekday, when there’ll be a fight
for parks, and everyone oblivious
to scented scenes of my young days.
Elvis, ten of the best
9th July 2022
The Elvis movie directed by Baz Luhrmann plays fast and loose with the truth of Elvis Aaron Presley’s life. Does it matter? Stardom, like hero worship down through the ages from Achilles to Joan of Arc, has never been limited by the facts of a life. Or even if the hero actually existed. The movie continues that tradition of myth-making.
More important to me than the myth or knowing the flawed man behind the star image, was simply Elvis’s voice, his supreme gift. Here’s my selection of ten essential Elvis performances that utilised that gift:
That’s All Right (1954)
The beginning. Sam Phillips’s Sun Studio, with Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on upright acoustic bass. A blues song by Arthur Crudup infused with country rhythm and swing. Elvis sings “all right” about ten different ways, showing off all the recognisable Elvis vocal mannerisms. They’re cliches now, but they must have sounded fresh and original back then. The track was a sensation when first played on a Memphis radio station. Listeners rang up demanding it be played over and over.
Blue Moon (1956)
On all the tracks Elvis recorded at Sun Records, he sounds like no one before him. These recordings are a bomb going off in the tradition of popular music. His version of ‘Blue Moon’ sounds like he’s singing from outer space. It’s truly weird when he falsettos an elongated “blue” into something primitive and otherworldly. The rarefied soundscape has a lot to do with Sam Phillips’s “reverberation technique” that gave the early Elvis records a big echoing sound.
My Baby Left Me (1956)
Few Elvis impersonators have attempted this song. It’s surprisingly high-pitched. You can hear a sonic trajectory that goes from this to Robert Plant’s blues wailings in Led Zeppelin. Plant was inspired by African American blues singers, but he was also a big Elvis fan.
Heartbreak Hotel (1956)
The definitive early Elvis song. Being lonely has never sounded so good, so sexy. When he gets low and slow in that stuttering vocal, it made the girls scream. It’s the song most people choose if they want to impersonate Elvis. I can do a pretty good version myself. The minimalism of the music accompaniment, that tinkling piano and big bass notes, gives the song a texture that, contrary to the song’s lyrics, helps make Heartbreak Hotel a place you want to be.
You’ll Never Walk Alone (1967)
There are some good performances on Elvis’s post-army records, even the ones accompanying some of those awful movies. However it’s his gospel recordings during the sixties where he’s most passionate and committed. It’s hard to pick a favourite, but I’ll go with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ which was a Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune that Elvis turned into a gospel song. He’s singing like a man who knows what it’s like to be lost. His performances of ‘How Great Thou Art’, ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Milky White Way’ are equally moving. I’m not remotely religious, but I’d listen to these songs in a beautiful church and probably cry.
Tomorrow Is Long Time (1966)
A cover of a Bob Dylan song. Elvis heard the song via an Odetta album of Dylan covers. The way Elvis sings it, with restraint and simplicity, in a mournful tone, slows down time. The song lasts 5 minutes and 18 seconds, but it seems much longer, with tomorrow never reached.
If I Can Dream (1968)
To fully appreciate ‘If I Can Dream’, you have to watch Elvis’s performance that concluded his NBC television special of 1968. This is rock stardom presence with bells on. His movements are somehow awkward and incredibly cool at the same time. Elvis is both church preacher and snake oil seller at a travelling circus. Either way, you can’t help believing, such is the performance. There’s a growl in his voice on this plaintive song that’s rare.
Suspicious Minds (1968)
Rejuvenated by the 68′ Comeback Special and free from movie contracts, Elvis headed to Memphis to record what many people think is his best album. The sessions produced the wonderful ‘Suspicious Minds’. To my mind, his vocal is effortless – a word that best describes Elvis’s singing at its most sublime. The song’s protagonists are stuck in a trap, while Elvis’s voice is stuck in an irresistible groove.
An American Trilogy (1971)
This song montage takes me back to being a young child exposed to Elvis through my dad playing one of his greatest hits albums. I didn’t understand what ‘An American Trilogy’ was about. It just sounded important. An ascending operatic movement of sadness and emotional release. A deep mystery to a child’s ears.
My Way (Live, 1977)
In the 1981 documentary film, ‘This Is Elvis’, the movie’s makers include footage of Elvis in his final days on stage singing ‘My Way’. He’s fat, bloated, sweating profusely, looking ridiculous in a tight-fitting jumpsuit. Even though his body is deteriorating, his voice retains some of that effortless quality. He puts everything into the performance, knowing surely that he soon faces the “final curtain”. It’s tragic and sad, yet defiant of life’s struggles and ultimate absurdity. This is the conclusion of Elvis’s American Dream.
Vaughan Gunson : Writing 