Taxation (Research and Development Tax Credits) Bill

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to talk about clause 2(1); that is about Part 1 of this Act, which has already come into force. Here it says, “comes into force on 1 April 2019.” Today, being 30 April 2019, this part of this Act has already come into effect from 1 April 2019. I would actually like to know from the Minister if this was a wise move given that this is such a complicated policy that the Government has put forward. It could have been simplified; it could have provided a bigger picture about their intention to support business research and development. Instead of doing that, they have just rushed to roll-out this policy while the bill is being debated here in the committee of the whole House, and the policy has already come into effect. So they have taken the whole process for this legislation for granted

Now, several businesses would still be waiting for this legislation to go through this House before they start incurring expenses which they believe they will be able to claim an R & D tax credit for. How fair is this for businesses when they know that the policy has already come into effect but the legislation has not gone through?

Our point is that we haven’t seen the full picture, because in this legislation it’s not just that the whole process has been delayed, which, clearly, indicates how disorganised this Government has been around this legislation. The second point is that the refundability provision—which I spoke about, because it is part of this bill—is going to be reviewed again in 2020. So this is such a temporary provision in Part 1 of this Act, which has been implemented from 1 April 2019, which is very unfair for businesses that are spending their hard-earned dollars on research and development. The Government should be giving more regard to the hard-earned dollars that businesses spend on research and development, by making sensible approaches towards these kinds of policies.

Having this policy already implemented from 1 April clearly shows that the Government just wanted to rush it through. I just want to make a political point here that, yes, this policy was put in place before, in 2007, which National got rid of, and then this Government was determined to bring this policy back and they said they were going to bring it back from 1 February 2019, and that is what they have done, even not giving enough time to officials, not giving enough time to people to contribute on where businesses do not have enough tax liable income.

So leaving that part, where the risk is higher for businesses—because the risk is higher for businesses when they don’t have enough tax liable income. That means their profits are not that high because businesses are investing and reinvesting to grow their research and development or maybe to acquire bigger markets. There could be so many reasons why businesses are not able to have tax liable income, but the Government didn’t care; they decided that this Part 1 will come into effect from 1 April 2019 with a temporary provision in there about refundability, which is going to be reviewed as part of their review that is going to be implemented, hopefully, from April 2020—that is what we hear.

So we believe that Part 1 of this Act should be removed—the whole. We would like to see a full picture of this policy so that we can fully understand how this Government wants to support business research and development, because what is happening in Part 1 does not give us that confidence, and we would like to see that the review the Government intends to do should become part of this legislation and it should be only coming into effect in maybe 2020 or 2021, once they’re fully prepared, once they fully understand what businesses actually need, and understand the environment of our businesses here in New Zealand to make sure that the policies are going to suit them.

So one approach is not going to suit all businesses; there are different kinds of businesses that we have in New Zealand, they are committed to doing different kinds of research and development, and they come in various sizes and forms. So, just putting a temporary measure through Part 1, which has already come into force on 1 April 2019, is not doing any justice to these businesses that are spending their hard-earned dollars on research and development.

So I would like to see that this Part 1 is actually removed and that the whole legislation is delayed until the full policy is formed.