The Government's Budget for 2010 was announced on Thursday May 20, 2010. Here is a summary of relevant announcements. Please use the comment box to add your feedback on the budget.

Highlights include:

Tax Cuts

All personal income tax rates will be cut from 1 October 2010.

$0 - $14,000 per year tax rate will come down from 12.5% to 10.5%

$14,001 - $48,000 cut from 21.0% to 17.5%

$48,001 - $70,000 cut from 33.0% to 30.0%

Over $70,000 cut from 38.0% to 33.0%

Company Tax

The company tax rate will fall from 30 per cent to 28 per cent from the 2011/12 income year.

Fact Sheet: Company tax cut

GST

GST will be increased from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent from 1 October 2010.

Fact Sheet: Tax changes at a glance [PDF]

Related Link: www.taxguide.co.nz

Arts and Culture

Announcement from Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Christopher Finlayson.

Creative New Zealand agreed to the Government’s one-off reprioritisation of $5.5 million from its baseline funding in 2009/10.

•   the New Zealand Historic Places Trust will receive a grant of $3 million to address critical repairs and maintenance to NZHPT heritage sites and buildings, improving visitor safety and tourism opportunities.

•   Pukaki Trust (Rotorua) will receive $100,000 in 2010/11 to investigate options for a permanent and sustainable long term location for the carving known as Pukaki, which features on the New Zealand 20 cent coin.
 
•   One-off additional funding of $400,000 in 2010/11 has been allocated to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s Cultural Diplomacy International Programme to assist Rugby World Cup initiatives.

* 2009/10 - New Zealand Film Archive will receive a grant of $2 million to address urgent film preservation needs.

Broadband

A further $248 million for the Government's broadband initiatives, as part of the $1.5 billion fibre initiative.
The Budget allocates a further $200 million of that capital funding in 2010/11 for investment in ultra-fast broadband infrastructure by Crown investment company Crown Fibre Holdings.

Announcement from Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce

Research, Science and Technology

The Government has pledged $321m for research, science and technology. The centrepiece of the funding increase is a $234 million boost for support for business research and development over four years.

This includes:
    * $189.5 million over four years for technology development grants to support R&D in businesses that already do significant amounts of R&D
    * $20 million over four years to trial technology transfer vouchers, to encourage links between companies and publicly-funded research organisations
    * $11 million over four years to support technology transfer from research organisations to businesses and commercialisation of new products and processes
    * $13.7 million over four years in contingency funding for initiatives to improve the transfer of technology from research organisations to the private sector

The other major new initiatives are:

    * $25 million over four years for the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships which will support early to mid-career researchers
    * $9 million over three years, starting in 2011/12 to attract top science entrepreneurial talent to New Zealand
    * $44.3 million over four years in contingency funding for proposed large-scale science infrastructure, subject to Cabinet approval.

Announcement from Budget 2010 Minister and Prime Minister John Key

Tourism

The tourism industry will receive $30 million in new funding for 2010/11

Most of the new tourism funding ($25 million) will be used to increase the marketing of New Zealand as a tourism destination internationally. The other $5 million will be allocated to joint venture initiatives.

Announcement from Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism John Key