[CCS]

Originally Posted by Juju

The 11,000 figure came from the number of non-resident tax payers who declared a taxable profit on their rental properties according to the IRD (Including commercial property).


Highly accurate. No really, Mr Shearer thinks so.

The current Labour leader and Miss Clark’s successor as MP for Mt Albert, David Shearer, claimed at the weekend there are “more than 11,000 overseas investors [who] own properties here that they don’t live in”.

What Mr Shearer did not say is the figure comes from Inland Revenue’s numbers about “non-resident” taxpayers who pay taxes on houses they own in New Zealand.

“Non-resident” taxpayers are largely made up of expatriate New Zealanders and in this context are those who have gone overseas and who have rented out their properties here.

There are no figures on this but it is a highly common practice – although most who go overseas will have only one, or maybe two, properties to rent out and not, as in the case of Miss Clark, who departed to the United Nations in 2009, who owns four.

RAW HAW HAW HAAAAWWW!!