Ryan Bridge: Businesses are the forgotten victims of the capital gains debate

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

So Luxon is back in the news. Bryce Edwards written a piece saying our members of parliament own 2.3 homes per MP - more than most of us.

Jacinda made $330,000 on her property while Prime Minister. Luxon has made close to half a million dollars on his properties.

Now let's really talk about a capital gains tax, because we essentially have one on investment property - the bright line test.

You can argue over how long that should be, and governments have changed this from red to blue, from 10 to 2 years.

But let's sideline property for a second and talk about business.

Do you really think it's fair to tax capital gains on the sale of business?

Business owners take huge risk, work incredibly hard and have to deal with stress, late nights, untold hours of lost sleep.

They also employ people, pay them, pay tax on earnings, help support jobs, grow the economy, provide tax base of hospitals/education etc.

Then when they finally are either burnt out or wanting to move on grow something else, bang! We hit them with a tax on their earnings.

It doesn't seem fair to me. We need people to invest confidently into their businesses and grow them for the benefit of all of us.

I don't think a capital gain tax on business will achieve that.

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