The KPMG 2009 Corporate and Indirect Tax Rate Survey, which investigates the corporate and indirect tax rates of the OECD for the 2009 year, has found that New Zealand holds the seventh highest corporate tax and one of the lowest indirect tax rates of the nations surveyed.

Ireland and Iceland had the lowest corporate tax rates in the survey, with 12.5% and 15% respectively. While New Zealand’s rate of 30% was rated 7th, with USA and Japan reigning the top spots at rates of 40% and 40.69% respectively.

The survey found that New Zealand holds the sixth lowest indirect tax rate in the world, with its 12.5% GST rate. Canada meanwhile has the lowest rate at 5%, and Denmark was the highest at 25%.

According to the survey, global governments are increasingly more reliant on indirect taxes for income procurement. Paul Dunne, KPMG Senior Tax Partner, commenting on the global levels of indirect taxes said “However, rate increases increase prices for consumers. For this reason GST rate increases quickly become political and therefore if considered in New Zealand should be thought of as part of a broad package of measures.”

The New Zealand Dollar (Kiwi) reached a value of US51.65 cents.Further, the Kiwi reached a seven year low of 46.98 against the Japanese Yen.

The falls came amidst similar moves from many world currencies. On a global scale this can be attributed to the speech of Barack Obama, which did not reveal any new details regarding the U.S. Economic recovery package. The lowest points for the Kiwi against both the Yen and Greenback came near the closing of the Presidential Speech.

The fall of the Kiwi can also be attributed to the low sales economic figures for the month of December. These came as a surprise to economists who predicted better times due to enacted and oncoming tax cuts.

The Kiwi had made some recovery against both the Yen and Greenback by trade closing.

The visiting US-NZ Council president John Mullen was quoted as saying that Barack Obama does not wish to reverse any globalisation work done so far, and that the? situation would only be worse off if it were. He said that relations between the United States and New Zealand are at the highest point that they have been at in over a quarter of a century.

Some commentators even claim that New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance will not be as much of a hindrance under Barack Obama as it was previously. The stance was often seen as one of the key disagreement points in previous negotiations with New Zealand.

Free Trade talks are scheduled to be held in March between the United States and the Trans-Pacific Partnership of New Zealand, Brunei, Singapore and Chile.

The Conference consisted of 100 delegates from over different 20 countries, Abaconda Management Group was present with two delegates. The keynote speaker for the event was David O’Rear, Chief Economist of Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. Other international speakers came from Austria, Hong Kong, Italy, Austria, Seychelles and USA.

Topics at the Asia Offshore Association Conference included banking and investments in globalized economy especially in Asia-Pacific region, the Asian economy in global context and offshore business activities.

There was also a strong focus on differentiating the genuine activities of offshore investing with the less savory forms of tax evasion that take place. One attendee was quoted as saying that the conference held a sense of shared global responsibility to prevent using offshore structures and bank accounts for tax evasion and money laundering. Within this theme there were speakers on the topics of collaboration of regulatory and tax authorities, tax planning in global market, and the needs of multi-jurisdiction banking.

Double Taxation agreements prevent the situation of taxation on one income by two countries, through coming to an agreement as to what incomes will be taxed in the country of residence and exempt in the country of occurrence. It also deals with the opposite case where the income will be taxed at the country of occurrence and compensation arises in the country of residence.
Double Taxation also extends to more comprehensive sharing of tax information between tax authorities.

New Zealand currently holds double taxation agreements with the following countries:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Chile
China
Czech Republic
Denmark
Fiji
Finland-
France
Germany
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Malaysia
Mexico
Norway
Poland
Republic of Korea
Russian Federation
Singapore
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
The Netherlands
The Philippines
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States of America