PETITION: Carbon Tax Refund
Petrol prices are skyrocketing and Labour is taking more and more tax from you every week.
ACT knows Kiwis are struggling, not just with a cost of living crisis, but a tax crisis as well. We have a simple solution that would give the average family a $749 Carbon Tax Refund. It wouldn’t touch health, education, police, or any public service.
Since Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister, the tax on a litre of 91 has gone up 41.6 cents – a 44% increase. If you fill up your car every two weeks with 50 litres of 91, you’re paying $541 more in tax each year than when Jacinda was elected.
One tax New Zealanders pay on petrol is the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) tax. (The ETS tax is paid by any business that emits greenhouse gases, including petrol companies and electricity generators.)
In the 12 months to June 2022, the Government will collect $1.5 billion through the ETS. It wants to spend that money on the Green Party’s Climate Slush Fund. But New Zealand’s emissions are already capped, so that fund doesn’t actually change our impact on the climate.
And, by the way, New Zealanders already have an incentive to save money on petrol right now.
ACT is proposing to give the money back to Kiwi families to help with the rising cost of living.
We would return the tax revenue collected from the ETS to New Zealanders in the form of a Carbon Tax Refund. Based on Treasury’s latest forecasts, that would mean a $749 payment this year to a family of four ($187 per person).
You can read more about how our Carbon Tax Refund would work here.