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What we want...
a change in the law.
We are campaigning for an amendment to the New Zealand Income Tax Act (1976) to allow for all couples to declare any income earned by either partner as partnership income.
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Rationale:
To create economic visibility for the "mother- in-the-home" (or "father-in-the-home").
To strengthen women's economic independence, and establish a legal basis for a more equal sharing of income between partners in that every person would have a right to an income in their own right. There is no intent to artificially split income to reduce taxes.
To establish consistency with the Matrimonial Property Act (1976) by extending the principle of joint ownership of income and property to the period of the marriage itself, and not just on its dissolution .
To remove anomalies between couples whose income is derived from a privately own business and couples whose income is from wages and salaries.
To allow couples greater flexibility in deciding how they share the tasks of income generation and caregiving, as the impact on taxation would be neutral.
The proposal may reduce the tax take in the short term, but because it strengthens the family in economic and social terms, the benefit to our communities would be considerable, and may in the end cost the taxpayer less.
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