Foreign property investment often hidden – IRD, Rate rises and the council cost conundrum, Crown lease selloffs prove cheap
What's in your National Business Review print edition this week.
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In today's NBR Print edition: PROPERTY INVESTMENT: Secret offshore investors trouble IRD
LITIGATION: Funder seeks level playing field
LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Rate rises and the council cost conundrum
FRAUD: Tax refund sought on Ross ponzi
SHAREMARKET: Foreign investors exit local market
Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show tax officials are more concerned about the extent of offshore buyers in the New Zealand market than the government has previously admitted. “Offshore investment is significant and often masked,” a briefing to the Commissioner for Inland Revenue Naomi Ferguson stated in April this year. Rob Hoksing reports.
Home-grown litigation funder LPF Group tends to stay in the background but is a key driver behind several high profile legal cases, reports Jenny Ruth. Director Phil Newland estimates LPF has collected more than $50 million from 11 cases since it began in 2009 but he wishes it was much more.
New Zealand’s rock star economy is losing its swagger and foreign equity investors are beginning to hunt elsewhere, which may push share prices down. Calida Smylie reports.
An annual rise in rates has apparently joined death and taxes as one of life’s inevitable occurrences. The national rates average has doubled over the past 20 years, tracking at twice the rate of inflation. The local government sector is currently investigating alternatives to the archaic system that disproportionally charges home and landowners. Central government, however, would prefer councils stem the rising rates tide by doing more for less – or, failing that, less for less. Sally Lindsay and Nick Grant with the story.
Inland Revenue should “do the right thing” and repay tax paid by victims of David Ross on fictitious profits after the High Court found the Ponzi scheme was all a façade, a tax accountant tells Hamish McNicol.
Controversial research on Crown lease tenure reviews has revealed some parcels of land freeholded and sold by the Crown for $11 million have later been sold for $303 million, writes Chris Hutching. Lincoln University lecturer Ann Brower released her latest research at the NZ Association of Economists’ conference on Wednesday. She has concluded that the Crown has been freeholding high country land cheaply compared to later sales.
NBR special report: It’s all about SMEs
All this and more in today’s National Business Review. Out now
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Foreign property investment often hidden – IRD, Rate rises and the council cost conundrum, Crown lease selloffs prove cheap
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