IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nzt/nztans/an25-07.html

How ageing and other economic factors have impacted New Zealand’s tax system

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Population ageing, income growth, and individuals shifting income into companies and trusts has materially changed New Zealand’s tax bases and revenue. We provide indicative analysis of these trends and four main insights: (1) An ageing population may result in an increase in GST revenues as older households spend their saved earnings. This could shift our tax base towards indirect taxes, however the size of this is relatively small. In addition, this result critically relies on assuming no behaviour change from households due to ageing. (2) On the other hand, there have been material behavioural changes. We show that there has been a rise in the ‘labour’ share of our personal tax base that is likely due to rising labour force participation, particularly by older individuals. We also show how, absent this rise in labour income from rising participation, an ageing population would have increased the ‘capital’ share of our personal tax base. (3) Fiscal drag has been significant as income growth moved more income into higher personal tax brackets. From 2011 to 2023, fiscal drag led to personal tax revenues rising by 1.6% of GDP. The distributional impact of fiscal drag is uneven and the full impact on New Zealanders depends on how the revenue is used. However, in the future, if fiscal drag continues, it’s likely to increasingly impact lower income individuals. (4) Taxpayers appear to have responded to gaps between the top personal tax rate and the entity tax rate by shifting more of their income into companies and trusts. This had a material and growing fiscal impact. The risk of sheltering in trusts has largely been removed with the alignment between top personal tax rate and trustee rate in 2024. However, there appears to have been growing sheltering in companies, indicating a potential shift in risk. We also show how this sheltering may explain some of the apparent rise in labour income for individuals as capital income is sheltered in these entities. Whether these trends continue in the future is uncertain. Our analysis shows that behavioural responses by taxpayers as well as future policy choices are key drivers of our tax bases and revenue. We hope the note highlights areas to have continued attention and vigilance.

Suggested Citation

  • Shane Domican & Sijin Zhang, 2025. "How ageing and other economic factors have impacted New Zealand’s tax system," Treasury Analytical Notes Series an25/07, New Zealand Treasury.
    • Handle: RePEc:nzt:nztans:an25/07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2025-10/an25-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gemmell, Norman, 2020. "New Zealand's Tax Reforms and 'Tax Sheltering' Behaviour," Working Paper Series 9367, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    2. Gemmell, Norman, 2020. "New Zealand's Tax Reforms and 'Tax Sheltering' Behaviour," Working Paper Series 21095, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    3. Ezra Oberfield & Gene M. Grossman, 2022. "The Elusive Explanation for the Declining Labor Share," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 93-124, August.
    4. Germán Gutiérrez & Sophie Piton, 2020. "Revisiting the Global Decline of the (Non-housing) Labor Share," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 321-338, September.
    5. Benjamin Ching & Tayla Forward & Oscar Parkyn, 2023. "Estimating the Distribution of Wealth in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 23/01, New Zealand Treasury.
    6. John Creedy & Norman Gemmell, 2014. "Can fiscal drag pay for the public spending effects of population ageing in New Zealand?," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 183-195, August.
    7. Matthieu Gomez, 2025. "Macro Perspectives on Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 127-148, Spring.
    8. David Crowe & Jörg Haas & Valentine Millot & Łukasz Rawdanowicz & Sébastien Turban, 2022. "Population ageing and government revenue: Expected trends and policy considerations to boost revenue," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1737, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andreas Teichgraber & John Van Reenen, 2021. "Have Productivity and Pay Decoupled in the UK?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 41, pages 31-60, Fall.
    2. Kola Benson Ajeigbe & Fortune Ganda & Rawlings Obenembot Enowkenwa, 2024. "Impact of sustainable tax revenue and expenditure on the achievement of sustainable development goals in some selected African countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(10), pages 26287-26311, October.
    3. Çürük, Malik & Rozendaal, Rik, 2022. "Labor Share, Industry Concentration and Energy Prices : Evidence from Europe," Discussion Paper 2022-023, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    4. Baek, Seungjin & Jeong, Deokjae, 2023. "Factors Influencing Labor Share: Automation, Task Innovation, and Elasticity of Substitution," MPRA Paper 118730, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Zhu, Wenpeng, 2023. "Digital financial inclusion and the share of labor income: Firm-level evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    6. Boldrin, Michele & Levine, David K. & Wang, Yong & Zhu, Lijun, 2024. "A theory of the dynamics of factor shares," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    7. Jaime Arellano-Bover & Carolina Bussotti & Matteo Paradisi & Liangjie Wu, 2026. "The Labor Demand Implications of Brand Capital: Evidence from Trademark Transactions," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 26079, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    8. Sabien Dobbelaere & Catherine Fuss & Mark Vancauteren, 2022. "Does offshoring shape labor market imperfections? A comparative analysis of Belgian and Dutch firms," Working Paper Research 425, National Bank of Belgium.
    9. Amaresh K Tiwari, 2023. "Automation In An Open, Catching-Up Economy: Aggregate And Microeconometric Evidence," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 144, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    10. Lionel Fontagné & Ariell Reshef & Gianluca Santoni & Giulio Vannelli, 2024. "Automation, global value chains and functional specialization," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 662-691, May.
    11. Jagannath Mallick, 2024. "Impact of economic globalisation and productivity on labour share in India and China," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 137-168, June.
    12. Jacob, Tinu Iype & Paul, Sunil, 2024. "Labour income share, market power and automation: Evidence from an emerging economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 37-45.
    13. Ibarra, Carlos A. & Ros, Jaime, 2023. "Trade and factor intensity, and the transmission of the global shock to labor: A panel analysis of the fall of the labor income share in the Mexican manufacturing sector," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(1).
    14. David M. Williams, 2021. "Pay and Productivity in Canada: Growing Together, Only Slower than Ever," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 40, pages 3-26, Spring.
    15. Filippo Biondi & Sergio Inferrera & Matthias Mertens & Javier Miranda, 2023. "Declining Business Dynamism in Europe: The Role of Shocks, Market Power, and Technology," Jena Economics Research Papers 2023-011, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    16. Klein, Michael A., 2025. "Patent policy, invention and innovation in the theory of Schumpeterian growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    17. Ichiro Muto & Fumitaka Nakamura & Makoto Nirei, 2024. "Digitalization, Entrepreneurship, and Wealth Inequality," IMES Discussion Paper Series 24-E-01, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    18. von Maydell, Richard, 2024. "Artificial Intelligence and its Effect on Competition and Factor Income Shares," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277654, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association, revised 2024.
    19. Jiyoon Oh, 2025. "The Micro-Level Anatomy of Korea’s Rising Labor Share," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 41, pages 175-210.
    20. Madeira, Carlos & Salazar, Leonardo, 2023. "The impact of monetary policy on a labor market with heterogeneous workers: The case of Chile," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 4(2).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nzt:nztans:an25/07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CSS I&T Web & Publishing, The Treasury (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tregvnz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.