Source: Taxpayers Union
1 MAY 2020FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Responding the announcement of an interest-free loan scheme for small businesses, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Jordan Williams says:“The Government’s business loan scheme leaves taxpayers exposed to enormous financial risk. Businesses will no longer have to justify their business decisions or the health of their balance sheet before they borrow up to $100,000 interest free from taxpayers. They don’t even have to use existing lines of credit. It’s interest free, then reverts to just 3% in a year’s time. You don’t even have to begin repayments for two years. And what if the business goes bust? Say it’s a massage parlour in Queenstown with no hope of recovery? Is it like tax, where the IRD are first in line? Or are they last? Both are just as scary.”“Any business with any loan – say paying 15% for finance on a vehicle – will be taking this money and shifting the risk onto the taxpayer. What about shareholder loans?”“A former Minister of Finance said to me earlier today, ‘this is starting to feel like 1978, where bad decisions lead to a decade of bad decisions’. Good God, with policy like this, we’ll be bust quicker than that.”“But the biggest loss in this policy is the Labour Party’s values. Unlike the wage subsidy, which at least had to be paid down to the workers who need it, this protects the capitalists and the bankers.”
