Will KiwiBank become an AussieBank.
Filed under: Banks, Property & General Investing, Retirement, Pensions and Kiwisaver
There are rumours that the NZ (National) government are thinking of selling some State Assets. Which for many people is the worst thing a government can do and brings out all sorts of diatribes. I’m in two minds about it myself – I think it’s good to have assets – even if you are country, but also you have to be prepared to sell them if they are basically not working for you, or you are in financial trouble. There’s just no point having a boat load of shares looking pretty if you cant afford your mortgage this month.
But when it comes to government assets – a whole load of issues come up. Which as far a my admittedly not-politically-astute mind can grasp comes down to Labour wont sell them – National will. In fact just prior to the financial world crash – the NZ government at the time (Labour) went so far as to buy back KiwiRail which had previously been privatised and was failing, at a massively over inflated price of $690m when it was worth about $369m.
So the first head on the chopping block this time round looks to be KiwiBank.
Now I’m not sure of all the pros and cons of the case – but what I can tell you is I’m pretty bloody disgusted at the sheer amount of bunkum being spouted about the effect this would have on new Zealand if it was sold. It’s a bit like the plonker who said that if we used credit cards we would lose our sovereignty to Australia. The way the opposition is talking it up – a float of KiwiBank and sales of shares to New Zealanders will ensure that KiwiBank is owned by the Aussies. Or even worse – in the hands of greedy “foreigners”.
And thus – ordinary Kiwis will lose out on something that they own.
But here’s the thing:
Firstly – if the Shares in KiwiBank are sold to Kiws – then it will only end up in the hands of “greedy foreigners” if the Kiwis sell the shares to make a fast buck. So who would really be the greedy ones?
Secondly – do Kiwi’s really “own” Kiwibank? If we do – where the hell are the profits we should be sharing in? The government gets a cut – which technically I guess Kiwis get back in the form of government spending – but c’mon! That hardly the same as being a shareholder and having a stake in the company – or getting dividends.
Thirdly, we also “own” most the electricity companies in New Zealand, or rather as with KiwiBank the government owns them. And how are rewarded? With ridiculously high electricity prices which just go up and up and up while the companies we “own” make more and more profit. Its estimated that we have been overcharged by the electricity companies we “own” to the tune of $4.3 Billion in the past 5 years. Hmm – yes – ownership of companies via the government is really working for us.
So all in all – when you hear about the horror of selling national assets – don’t necessarily believe what the papers are telling you. If you disagree with privatisation – fair enough. But just take a moment to wonder if you are being fed a line that is somewhat an exaggeration. That’s not to say that selling KiwiBank (or anything else) is a good idea. Just that it wont cause the destruction of life as we know it.
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Some useful new Tax Calculators and graphs
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Jobs & Work, Property & General Investing
Just to help you understand how things will be changing for you personally, here area few calculators that combine both the tax cuts and the GST increase. As well as the standard one on the IRD website – which does not have the new rates uploaded yet (!)– the Govt Has helpfully provided a calculator to tell you how much better you will be:
This does assume that you spend every penny your earn on GST paid items. So it asks how much your rent /mortgage (no GST to pay on that), and then looks at the increase you pay if you spend everything else.
However Deloittes have a calculator that allows you to specify roughly how much you spend, but doesn’t seem to allow you to specify how much you pay in Mortgage or rent.
Also – for reference – the following blogs on KiwiBlog have some fascinating graphs about taxes paid in New Zealand.
Working For Families and Effective tax rates
One loophole that has thankfully been closed is that people with rentals can no longer use their tax losses to claim Working For Families. This was occurring particularly with some people who held rental properties in their own names (rather than an LAQC which you weren’t allowed to do this with anyway). Because you can get your “taxable” income down – some people were then getting income low enough to claim Benefits on top of claiming tax losses. Like many things it really will depend on your personal views of taxation, but I feel that people earning our level income shouldn’t be claiming benefits – even if on paper they can get their taxable income down to a level that means theoretically they could claim it.
Graph of Tax Rates from 2008 to 2010
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The NZ budget what does it mean for you
Filed under: Cost of living, Economics, General Budgeting, Property & General Investing
Well honestly – pretty good things for anyone thinking of emigrating. Because no matter what else changed income tax rates went down which means you get to keep more of the money you worked your butt off to earn. And whether people agree or not- I personally believe that that should be the case.
So lets the good bit out the way now – what are the new Income Tax Rates:
Now that has to be good news for earners.
As for us personally – well using the calculators shows that if we were just earning the same 152k that hubby earned we would be doing quite well out of the new rates.
On current rates – Hubby earns $12,666 a month before tax and loses $4093 in tax. On the new rates he loses $3423 in tax, leaving us a respectable $670 a month better off.
There are some downsides. For one GST is going up in October from 12.5% to 15%. But while that’s not brilliant news for a lot of people for many people this is a tax that you have some control over paying. If you don’t spend you don’t pay it. So for the people who want a less consumerist lifestyle when they come to NZ, and are prepared to send less than they earn this works out really well.
There’s a bit if a hit for us property investors in that we can no longer claim depreciation on the building we are renting out. So this will reduce our tax losses and therefore our tax refund. However this is likely to be outweighed by the fact that we will have less tax screwed out of us in the first place.
I still firmly believe that we would have to pay a huge amount less in tax if governments in general would stop spending like there’s no tomorrow because they see us as a constant source of ready funds.
All in all though- this budget basically seems to me to be a really good thing for almost everyone. I have always believed that NZ was a great place to come if you wanted to get ahead financially. Most kiwis look askance at such a suggestion because they think the taxes are astronomically high here. I guess when you come from the UK 40% plus 11% NI plus the gob smacking plethora of hidden taxes- it seems like a breeze here. But then kiwis think 6% mortgages are cheap!
Perception really does depend on where you are looking from.
Your downside is still going to be the pathetically low wages, but I’ve discussed several times that you can do something about that.
It’s more complicated for us because of our rentals, but that requires a sit down with some coloured pens, a calculator, our last few years accounts and lots of coffee. Basically – we are saving a whopping $8,036 a year in tax on the new rates. But right at this moment I don’t actually know how much extra we will have to find to keep hold of the rentals with depreciation on the building gone. I don’t think its going to be as much as we are saving but I’ll let you know what I find.
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Bank Charges when traveling to Australia 2
So what do the banks screw you out of on top of the odd company trying to get you to pay extra for no reason?
Well, it felt like we needed to Phd in something-or-other to understand the charge structure and whether we were better off getting cash out or paying on a credit card. So here is the fee structure from ASB
Cash Withdrawals Overseas:
$5.00 charge each time.
And then there’s this little gem – which applies to both Cash Withdrawals and Credit card transactions.
Offshore services margin
All cash withdrawals made at an overseas ATM using your ASB ATM or EFTPOS card will either first be converted into US dollars and then into New Zealand dollars or converted directly from the currency in which the cash withdrawal was made into New Zealand dollars at the applicable conversion rate.
Offshore service margins of 1.1% are added to the converted New Zealand dollar amount of each cash withdrawal made using your ASB ATM or EFTPOS card at an overseas ATM, excluding those withdrawals made using Commonwealth Bank of Australia ATMs.
The offshore service margins comprise a Visa international service assessment of 0.85% imposed on ASB by Visa and passed on to you, and an ASB margin of 0.25%.
The converted amount and the offshore service margins will appear on your statement.
For overseas cash withdrawals made using Commonwealth Bank of Australia ATMs an ASB retail exchange margin of 0.7% is included in the conversion rate by ASB. The total converted amount (including the ASB retail exchange margin where applicable) will appear on your statement.
What the bleeding hell does that mean?
Well in short – it means they are going to make a profit out of the conversion from NZD to the foreign currency. The problem is that some profit is already loaded into the exchange rate, so this is on TOP of that profit.
But the real dastardly bit is the part where they say they will either convert straight from NZD to the foreign currency if you withdraw cash – or they will bounce it via USD first. Now why are they doing that?
Basically, because they can skim some more money off the transaction by effectively trading currency at your expense if there is a wide variation in the currencies. Like the Holiday Inn and its 1.5% surcharge: in itself its small amounts, but added together with all the transactions occurring – its gotta add up. I wish I knew how it all worked - but like much in banking its all shrouded in mystery and complicated mathematics – so we as the consumer cant really ever check things like this. Which is annoying and quite frankly wrong. What are the banks hiding?
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Bank Charges when traveling to Australia.
NOTE: Opps – this got stuck in drafts rather than getting posted, so should actually have been posted before the “What the Shysters at the Holiday Inn did next”.
Sorry for any confusion.
If there’s one thing guaranteed to get my blood boiling that is not anything to do with immigration – its bank charges. I read today that New Zealand is following Australia in taking a class action against the banks for overcharging on “special fees” such as dishonour fees: charging $30 when it actually costs them about $1 to process the thing.
However still no-one is shouting about the ridiculous amount we get charged to spend money on our New Zealand cards when we go abroad. Even more disgusting when you consider that all the New Zealand banks apart from Kiwibank are actually owned by Australia – so why the bloody hell are they charging us fees when we visit their country and try to spend our money. All the money they screw out of us in profits comes here anyway – so it really is beating the crap out of us when we are down.
This evening we ate in the Hotel Restaurant at the Holiday Inn. As we went to sign the bill (which was being charged to our room) we saw a notice on the bottom of the receipt saying that there was a 1.5% charge added if you paid by credit card. Now this just pisses me off!
Companies should not expect their customers to pay their bank fees. We pay our own for crying out loud. But this got us wondering: were they expecting us to pay this 1.5% charge on our room bill as well?
Oh yes – they were!
Unfortunately when we asked about it at the front desk we were pointed (literally) to a sign (single) on the desk what mentions the charge.
Ok – I don’t care – its not on the booking form when you book the room, we weren’t told about when we checked in– the (single) sign was not pointed out to us, and it was only that we actually tend to read receipts that meant we knew were going to be charged extra on our bill. We asked for a business card for the manager and were given a feedback form to fill in.
Um – I don’t want a feedback form – I want the charge taken off and I want to speak to the manager! Now we were severely peeved. Eventually I decided that I was not going to be able to sleep while I was this angry. This is supposed to be relaxing trip – a chance to get well after the last few years of stress and illness: so to have to greedy money grabbing hotel decide to screw us out of extra money was not something I needed to deal with right now.
We eventually managed to get hold of a duty manger, and asked for the charge to be removed. This went reasonably well in that the charge was taken off, but I don’t think she really ever got why I was so angry – she kept asking what else had they done to upset me or what else was lacking in the hotels service. It is completely lost on these people that screwing their customers out of even a cent more than they should be is just wrong. Its unethical, its dishonest and it relies on the customers not noticing. And it is the most appalling customer service.
Lets be clear on this:
They do it because they know almost none their customers will notice the extra charge, and if they do, they won’t say anything about it.
Those of us that object to it get the charge removed.
Be one of those people!
Please don’t give them the pleasure of treating you like a mug. You already pay extra bank charges to buy anything when you go abroad – so don’t be conned into paying the companies bank charges as well. It’s a cost of them doing business – just like buying toilet rolls for the staff toilets. They don’t ask you for an extra dollar on your bill so the staff can wipe their bottoms do they? So why do they feel they can charge you to cover their bank charges?
BTW – the same thing happened this evening at the Crowne Plaza restaurant- owned by the same parent company (Intercontinental Hotels Group- IHG). Again – no mention when we made the booking, no one told us when we arrived, we just spotted the (single) sign on the desk. We spoke to the maitre’d before we sat down and said we wouldnt pay it – and could he let us know if this was a problem as we would not take the table if it was. He immediately told us that there would be no charge, and confirmed that later in the meal.
They know damn well they are breaking consumer law by not making clear extra charges at the time of booking, and they know damn well that they have to remove the charge if people tell them to.
Is what I say to this behavior!
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Tax Changes coming. Sometime.
There was a budget this week. And of course all the taxes changed.
I will be blogging about it I promise – but I’m still on the gold Coast and just cant bring myself to go look at the details.
I mean: Beach or Taxes?
So details coming next week when I don’t have a balcony with a view of the Gold Coast.
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What the Shysters at Holiday Inn did next.
It’s our own fault – we have to admit that. We swore we wouldn’t give the Intercontinental hotels group (IHG) any more of our business after issues at the Intercontinental in Wellington. But the Holiday inn and the Crowne Plaza were the conference hotels, and there were busses provided for the delegates so it kinda made sense to go with that despite our desire not to give them our cash.
It looks like we should have stuck to our guns and Hubby walk five minutes to the busses.
On top of finding the scam over the 1.5% “surcharge” on anyone paying by credit card, yesterday we had a rather unwelcome message on the hotel phone. Now I don’t know about you but I have a tendency to assume that if the message button on a hotel phone is flashing when I’m on holiday – it means disaster has struck and its my family needing to get hold of me urgently.
But no – it’s the hotel management.
So what is so urgent it needs a message?
Turns out our bill has reached $1000 and for “security” reasons they need us to come down and pay some money off the bill.
WHAT??????
I ask what I consider to be a sensible question: “You do know we are booked in for 9 nights don’t you??” Yes – seems they are which at a rate of $152 (special rate – usually nearer $250) a night means the bill was always going to come to over $1000 before the time was up. Would I like to speak the manager? Hell no – I’ll leave hubby (delegate at a Security conference) to have that amusing conversation.
So apart from the usual bullshit about how the IHG always do this (uh no you don’t – you didn’t in Sydney last year!) and this is quite common in hotels round the world (uh no – its not actually – $1000 might cover 2 nights in a London hotel – do you really want to know how many times we have been asked to pay something off the bill???) and then a befuddled silence when asked to explain what the **** they took an imprint of our credit card for – it was decided we would look for another hotel.
Because like it or not, and whether they accept it or not – they have just told us they don’t trust us to pay our bill at the end of the stay. Now its not as if they don’t have a history of us. Hubby has been in the rewards program for many years. And for the past 2 years we have had enough points to get to Platinum on their program – which requires a fair sum of money to have been spent and a scary amount of stays. I personally assume that if we were known to have run out on our bills before – someone may have spotted that and mentioned it to the hotels in the group.
The holiday inn were “sorry” for offending us and would not charge us a cancellation fee. I should bloody well hope not!
Oh the irony!
When we went to check out, we were given a copy of the bill to check. We always check the bill, because oddly enough, strange items that you didn’t use have a tendency to end up on the bill from time to time. A bit like the banks. Who also keep trying to slap you with extra surcharges. Hmm I wonder if someone from a banking history has taken over IHG?
It turned out that they had the wrong room rate on the bill – and were trying to charge us $200 a night instead of $152.
Which meant the bill so far actually only came to $917.80.
Chortle Chortle.
So rather than spending the afternoon on the beach, we went to check out some other hotels, and by 5 o’clock were ensconced in One The Esplanade, right on the beach, and with views to die for.
So what was this REALLY all about?
Once we stopped fuming, and were sat down at the hotel – Hubby happened to glance again at the bill, and noticed a really interesting note on the bottom:
Colryan Pty Ltd (receivers and managers appointed)
Hmm, so all this bollocks about “security” really is just that. The company is in receivership and the receivers appear to have instructed them to ensure bills do not go over $1000.
Which is not about security – it’s about the fact that your company is in trouble. Only because you have lied and tried to say it’s because we might run off and not pay the bill – you have just lost $600 in accommodation fees. Being an arse is bad enough – being a dishonest arse is worse. There was no reason not to point out that notice once we had decided to leave, and explain to us the truth of the situation. We would still have been unhappy and refused to pay upfront, but we would at least not been accused of being likey to run out on the bill.
You know here’s a thought IHG: Stop pissing off your customers, stop treating them like crap, and maybe you would stop losing so much money and your hotels would not be going into receivership.
Of course what the hell do I know? I’m just the customer holding the purse strings.
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I think I may have bought the worlds most expensive cup of coffee.
(Written in situ from my iPhone – see – I’m in the 21st century of blogging now!)
This possibly beats the previous shock of the overpriced cappuccino in Venice where we paid am extra €5 to sip the tiny drink in St Marks Square. And even beats the scary coffee I once bought at Robert Harris in Lower Hutt at almost $6 – but that was for a large takeway which looked something like a Starbucks Venti (or bathtub of coffee).
But this mornings coffee that I am currently waiting for (with baited breath to see how many gold plated sprinkles it comes with) has just cost me $4.60 (AUD) Thats about $5.75NZD, so up there with the bucket of decaff from Robert Harris. I am waiting for a decaf flat white. Cup not mug. What the hell would the mug have cost me? My soul??
It had better be bloody good.
The signage is a good start: espresso and gourmet. Hmm.
So the coffee has just arrived.
No gold sprinkles.
Its not a bucket of coffee.
And theres not even any Coffee Art.
And it looks weak (the foam should be showing distinct signs of strong coffee. Its not.
So far nothing to account for the price tag then.
Maybe it’s gonna taste better than it looks.
Nope – definitely not the superb taste I’m paying for!
Blimey – what i wouldn’t give right now for a decent Wellington Flat White. That actually tastes of coffee rather than warm milk. I can only guess I am being charged for the view of a lake (not even the beach) and the comfy chair. I actually really wanted the coffee.
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The British Lolly Shop
So apart from the really odd Southern-hemisphere insistence on calling a sweet a lolly (if it doesn’t have a stick in it, it ain’t a lolly!) this is a really cool shop. Mostly because it is almost 100% full of sweets. No mucking about here with cans of Heinz baked beans! There’s a corner of the shop dedicated to all the “other” stuff: jars of sauces, cans, and overpriced Yorkshire teabags.
Once you get past that it row upon row of old fashioned sweet jars and chocolate bars – including real Diary Milk.
Bliss for most brits I would say.
They even have a small selection of sugar free stuff – including sugar free coke bottles: I never knew such a thing existed so that was a revelation. And joy of joys – they actually had some Thornton’s Sugar free mint truffles. I bought a few packs but cant promise that any will make it back home with me.
Best of all, unlike the now closed-down Cool Britannia in Wellington – the shop staff are actually cheerful – as you would expect for anyone working in a sweet shop, not as miserable as an old Wellington boot. And they say they can order stuff in for you of you need something specific: they will even post to New Zealand at cost.
www.thebritishlollyshop.com.au
It was a lovely interlude.
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Now thats nearly more shopping than I can possible imagine.
It was cloudy yesterday. No sun on the Gold Coast – so we went shopping. In my defense this was an absolutely necessity – I brought the wrong swimming costume with me and needed a new one.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it OK?
Now we are staying in Surfers Paradise, so basically one very long beach. Oddly enough though, the part we are actually staying in has lots of shops. And not just shops of tacky beach souvenirs – though there are plenty. No – we have Gucci, Louis Vuitton: the whole nine yards of overpriced “designer” stuff for people with more money than I have.
Actually to be fair you could probably be quite happy just with what’s here at the beach, especially after 5 years of living in Wellington. There’s a fair range, with a nice mix of the overprices designer crap, normal high street stores and a few interesting boutiques – and the odd “alternative” shop which I miss so much.
But for real shopping apparently the place to do is Robina Town Centre. I was all ready to head to the bright lights of Brisbane City – but was told that this might be a better option. Turns out that was a good call.
Apart from the oddity of a rather large Shopping centre being called a Town centre – oh the bliss of being in a proper Mall. Lost of shops, proper Department stores (rather than the stuffy and ridiculously old fashioned Kirkaldie and Staines – complete with naff café and dolled up pianist that we have to make do with in Welly).
Proper shops.
In fact I would have been in utter raptures for the Borders store alone except that we finally got one in Wellington a couple of years ago. And I was in raptures over the sheer number of shoe shops. I need to point out that I don’t in fact buy hundreds of pairs of shoes – I just happen to like good (and expensive) shoes that last for years, and New Zealand doesn’t have a huge choice of them – so this for me is the pinnacle of shopping heaven – even if I’m not going to buy a dozen pairs.
In the end I bought my swimming cozzie – from the Speedo Store – cos they had one, but thoroughly enjoyed my morning of window-retail-therapy. I may even go back to finish of my outfit for a night out at Dracula’s.
Hubby reckons this is why so many Kiwis think moving to Australia is such a cool idea – they just don’t have this kind of shopping mecca that we are used to. I’m not so taken with it. It’s nice to visit, but for me there’s just too many people and too much noise. I find this whenever I have left NZ for a trip abroad – I love the new novelty of being able to “shop” but I’m ever so glad that I get to go home to the peace and quite of the Wairarapa!
Besides – the coffee is just not up to scratch!
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