ISSUE #9: Taxes

AKA: tax, taxation

What this graph shows

• Core Crown Tax Revenue as a % of GDP for June financial years (July-June) under the PBE accounting standard adopted from 2005. This ensures consistency in comparisons.
• This measures central government tax revenue relative to the size of the economy, rather than the tax paid by individuals.
• It excludes taxes collected by local councils, such as property rates, and non-tax charges such as council fees and ACC levies.

Key notes

• The y (vertical) axis starts at 24% and not 0%, and ends at 32%. This is a common representation for data like this where 1% shifts add or subtract billions of dollars. A scale from 0-100% hides these insights.
• The ‘tax’ issue can mean different things to different people, however, most voters agree that they'd like to pay less tax or have our taxpayer money spent and invested better. The September 2026 Ipsos NZ Issues Monitor actually asked this question "Thinking about the amount of tax you currently have to pay, which of the following best describes how you feel?" The responses were:
  • 44% = I should pay less tax
  • 45% = I pay about the right amount of tax
  • 4% = I should pay more tax
  • 7% = Don’t know
    That's a 22:1 ratio of those who don't want to pay more tax to those who do.
• That same survey also asked about the introduction of various new taxes and the level of support varied from 22% for a "Commuter Tax" and 24% for a "Land Value Tax" to 45% for a "Capital Gains Tax" to 64% for a "Wealth Tax". Importantly, the questions did not clarify whether these taxes would be additional to, or replace, existing taxes. The survey also used an online Ipsos panel rather than random telephone sampling.
• External factors can influence the amount of tax revenue collected, and context is important, but governments are ultimately accountable for New Zealand's performance.
• Remember that each Labour-led or National-led government has had coalition partners that share in their successes and failures. A full list of governments for this time range is at the bottom of this page.

Data sources

• 2017-2026 = Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2026 > Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2026 - Charts and Data > 'Fiscal Time Series' worksheet (right at the end)
• 2005-2024 = Data - Fiscal Time Series Historical Fiscal Indicators 1972-2024 > Fiscal Time Series Historical Indicators 1972 - 2024 > 'Revenue, Surplus measures’ worksheet. Only the 2005-2014 figures have been taken from here given the BEFU above is a newer release.

Data timing

• Frequency: Bi-annual EFUs (Economic and Fiscal Updates), plus an additional one in election year
• Update delay
  • BEFU (Budget) = May
  • HYEFU (Half Year) = December
  • PREFU (Pre-election) = ~September in election years
  • Annual audited financial statements = October (however, the 2024 statements only showed a 'Total Crown tax revenue' not a 'Core Crown tax revenue' figure, so we haven't used that.
• Last update: PREFU = 22 September 2026
• Next update:
  • Annual audited financial statements = Oct 2026, although we are not sure if this will shown 'Core Crown tax revenue'. We will ask.
  • HYEFU = Dec 2026

Why this KPI?

• IPSOS lists this issue as ‘Taxation’ and Curia as ‘Taxes’. These subtle differences could mean different things, e.g.
  • How much we pay in tax individually
  • How much we pay in tax collectively
  • How well that taxpayer money is invested/spent by the government
  • Whether the tax system is fair.
• Even within that last point, there are varying opinions on what ‘fair’ means, e.g.
  • The top 10% of earners currently pay ~50% of income tax in New Zealand, and the bottom 50% of earners pay ~10%. Some argue this is not fair with top earners paying too large a share. Some argue this is not fair and top earners should pay a greater proportion.
  • Some people believe it’s unfair that others can make capital gains on houses and not pay income tax on those earnings.
  • Some people believe that paying up to 39% income tax on income over $180,000, and then 15% GST on what’s left (and other taxes too like fuel, vehicles, and alcohol) is unfairly high.
  • Some believe that 29% of New Zealanders paying no ‘net income tax’ (income tax after benefits and tax credits) while the top 9% of earners over $100k pay half, is not fair.
  • And then there’s the debate about %s versus $s, and realised versus unrealised earnings.
• Because fairness is a highly subjective and contested measure, we can’t use that as the KPI here.
• And, unfortunately, it’s currently very hard to empirically measure financially how well taxpayer money is invested/spent by the government, let alone capturing the non-financial benefits too, e.g. health, happiness, and safety.
• As such, that leaves us to measure how much we pay in tax as a society.
• The total tax taken by the government is referred to as Core Crown Tax Revenue. In other words, how much an economy is taxed.
• But this goes up as the population grows, and also as the economy does well, so we need to make an adjustment to measure Core Crown Tax Revenue as a % of GDP.

Related facts

Current

• Economy/GDP Per Capita
• Government Debt

Older

• Core Crown tax revenue vs Core Crown expenses
• Core Crown tax revenue and expenses vs what was budgeted (2022 data)
• Income tax distribution
• Income tax by income earnt
• Poll on a wealth tax and tax cuts
• See also:

Wishlist

With support, we’ll be able to add multiple KPIs for each issue:

• Updates on many of the KPIs listed above.
• Core Crown tax revenue per capita inflation-adjusted
• Median and average tax paid per capita
• Public servants per capita
• Breakdown by tax type over time

Governments over the timeframe shown

• 2005 = Labour/Progressive + United, NZ First
  
  
• 2008 = National + ACT, United, Māori
  2011 = National + ACT, United, Māori
  2014 = National + ACT, United, Māori
  
  
• 2017 = Labour/NZ First + Green
  2020 = Labour + Green

• 2023 = National/ACT/NZ First

/ = Coalition partners
+ = Other formal governing agreements, including confidence and supply, support and cooperation.

Sources:1,2 (table 5).

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Data published by The Treasury New Zealand
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