Labour heading for barely-there CGT

Briefly in my Picks ‘n Mixes on Monday, September 15, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around hoapplying, poverty and climate are:

Labour is expected to finalise and announce a capital gains tax (CGT) proposal within weeks that takes the lightest possible touch to raising taxes, attempting to reduce its political risks of a National-led tax-attack at the election next year.
Thomas Coughlan wrote in his NZ Herald-$ column on Saturday that Labour views set to adopt a narrow version of a CGT that excludes the family home and wider company and business assets such as farms, but applies to gains on residential land owned as second properties and by rental property investors.
Thomas cited a minority paper from the Cullen Tax Working Group released in 2019, which suggested such a tight version of the CGT would raise just under $1 billion over 10 years, less than two-fifths of the version Labour took to the 2017 election and less than a tenth of the wealth tax considered in Budobtain 2023.
The Government yesterday announced a new fund with $70 million to support tourism operators and councils attract large events from next year. But the fund includes $25 million of previously announced funding from elsewhere and operators state budobtain cuts by the Government and councils in recent years have already done the damage, given the long lead times for such events, as Amelia Wade reported yesterday for The Sunday Star Times-$.
Economists expect June quarter GDP figures due this Thursday to reveal the economy slumped back into contraction after just a two-quarter rebound. The consensus is GDP fell 0.4% in Q2 from Q1. The RBNZ’s Nowcast measure from last Friday predicated a 0.2% fall would be reported for the June quarter.
A BusinessNZ-BNZ survey published on Friday revealed the manufacturing sector fell back into recessionary territory in August, after bouncing into expansionary territory in July.
But electronic transactions data also out on Friday revealed a slight rise in retail sales volumes in August from July, taking expansion in sales to a third consecutive month.