McLeod still hoping for tax reforms

Soon to step down as chairman of big four accounting firm Ernst & Young, Mr McLeod said the 12-month, $1 million tax review was not a waste of time, even though most of its suggestions were rejected by the Labour Government.

There have been three big tax reviews in New Zealand in recent times, the Ross Review in 1967, the McCaw Review in 1982 and the McLeod Review in 2001.

Many of the recommendations from the previous two reviews were not acted on for about a decade, Mr McLeod said. "That is a pattern. The administrations that call for the reviews don't actually implement a great deal of the recommendations."

Reviews were often a political attempt to "park up the subject". But it paved the way for later administrations to bring in recommendations. The ACT party and to some extent National Party leader Don Brash had embraced some ideas in the McLeod report.

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