The Green Party is proposing a suite of new taxes, including taxes on wealth, inheritance, and corporations, which the party said would "tackle inequality and corporate greed".
By Giles Dexter of RNZ
The Greens would also adjust tax settings to introduce a tax-free threshold for income below $10,000, while increasing the tax rate for income over $160,000.
Dubbed "a tax system for all of us'' the proposal is the Greens' first major policy announcement going into the 2026 election. The policy document was inadvertently published online in full ahead of the announcement, which RNZ has seen.
The package has some key similarities to the Green Party's 2025 alternative Budget, although there are some differences to some of the tax rates and income thresholds.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said under the 2026 plan, 96% of New Zealanders would pay less tax.
"People aren't dumb. They know that while their cost of living has gone through the roof, corporate profits have skyrocketed and the wealthiest 150 rich listers now own more than half of the country," she said.
"The big rip-off ends here."
Swarbrick said under current tax settings, multi-millionaires paid $9 in tax out of every $100 they made, while a teacher paid $22 in tax out of every $100 they earned.
The party's policy document said in total, the package would increase net revenue by $5.35 billion in 2027/28, rising to $5.94 billion by 2030/31.
The proposals include a 2.5% annual tax on net assets above $10 million, including property, companies, bonds, and shares. The family home would be exempt.
This was projected to bring in $3.8 billion in 2027/28, rising to $4.1 billion by 2030/31.
There would also be a 33% capital acquisitions tax (in other words, an inheritance tax) on assets or gifts received over $1 million.
Again, the family home would be exempt, as would family farms and the transferral of Māori land under Te Ture Whenua Māori Act.
The Greens said this would affect about 1100 people and raise $953 million in 2027/28, rising to $1.1 billion by 2030/31.
The party would also increase the corporate tax rate from 28% to 33% for companies with annual turnover exceeding $30 million (which would include the supermarket duopoly, banks, and energy companies), implement a 0.06% annual levy on the total liabilities of the four big banks, and require big tech companies (like Meta, Amazon, and Google) to pay a 5% withholding tax rate on the profits they send offshore.
The corporate tax rate for small-to-medium companies would be kept at 28%.
Interest deductibility on residential property investment would be removed (repealing the changes the government introduced in 2024), and the bright-line test would be restored to ten years.
"Essential services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure could be funded if the super-rich and mega-corporates like the supermarkets duopoly, banks, and power companies contribute fairly to the society they profit from," said co-leader Marama Davidson.
The revenue would partly fund changes to income tax settings.
Currently, income up to $15,600 is taxed at 10.5%.
Income between $15,601 and $53,500 is taxed at 17.5%, income between $53,501 and $78,100 is taxed at 30%, income between $78,101 and $180,000 is taxed at 33%, and income of $180,001 and over is taxed at 39%.
The Greens' changes would see income up to $9999 taxed at zero%, income between $10,000 and $19,999 taxed at 10%, income between $20,000 and $39,999 taxed at 17.5%, income between $40,000 and $59,999 taxed at 25.5%, income between $60,000 and $79,999 taxed at 30.5%, income between $80,000 and $159,999 taxed at 33.5%, and income of $160,000 and over taxed at 45%.
This was projected to cost $2.3 billion in 2027/28, rising to $2.7 billion by 2030/31.
The Greens added a $100 million per year funding uplift for Inland Revenue to help with the administration and compliance of the changes.
The plan was reviewed by economics consultancy firm Infometrics, which said the costings appeared to be "reasonable assessments, conditional on the underpinning assumptions of each policy and commitment".
However, Infometrics said the large number of changes meant there could be overlapping and inter-related impacts, and not every variation or permutation of different policy interactions could be considered in totality.
"This caveat does not invalidate this review, but merely points out that the behavioural impacts of a number of policy changes is difficult to conceptualise in models, and overlapping behavioural changes are even harder to consider and have not been explicitly modelled," said Infometrics' principal economist Brad Olsen in his report.
"Put another way, tax changes at the scale proposed by the Green Party are difficult to fully model, given the substantial change in possible economic behaviour resulting from the various changes in taxable treatment, adding a level of complexity and uncertainty to the results."
Infometrics also considered there could be potential overlap between the wealth tax and inheritance tax, which could affect the modelling.
The Greens' policy document said the models for income tax, corporate tax changes, inheritance tax, wealth tax, bright-line test changes, and interest deductibility changes were created by the Parliamentary Library.
The data was sourced from Inland Revenue's systems of personal income tax returns, the 2024 Annual Enterprise Survey data, Stats NZ's Labour Market Statistics data, Household Net Worth statistics, National Accounts data, and Births and Deaths data, as well as Budget 2024 costings, the Reserve Bank's data for residential mortages, the Treasury's data on the Revenue Effect of Changes to Key Tax Rates, Bases, and Thresholds for 2019/20, the 2025 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, and the 2025 Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update.
On Monday, upon the publication of the National Business Review's annual rich list, Swarbrick said New Zealand's cost of living crisis had become a "cost of greed" crisis.
In 2025, the party set out an alternative Budget, that included new income tax rates and a tax-free threshold, a 2.5% wealth tax, inheritance tax, private jet tax, ending interest deductibility for landlords, restoring the 10-year 'bright-line' test, doubling minerals royalties, and changes to ACC levies.
At the time, the party said it would fund free GP visits, 20 hours free childcare, free annual dental checkups, free prescriptions, and an income guarantee of at least $395 a week. It would also have seen net debt increase to 53% by the 2028/29 financial year.
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