Kiwis left $17,000 worse off by Opportunity tax plan should 'look at the bigger picture' – Qiulae Wong

Author: Thomas Coughlan,
Publish Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2026, 1:49pm

The Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong spoke on Q+A. Photo / Mark Mitchell

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The Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong said New Zealanders who would pay about $17,000 in extra tax each year under her party’s to increase income tax for some should “look at the bigger picture”.

The example used was a couple, each earning $125,000, who had returned from overseas, did not own a home and who would pay $17,000 in extra tax each year. If they owned a home, they would be worse off by $27,000 a year. The figures come from Opportunity’s tax calculator, which looks at income for both individuals and couples.

“We have to look at the bigger picture here and we want to incentivise New Zealanders to stay where build a career here,” Wong said, when faced with the figures.

Wong was appearing on TVNZ’s Q+A with Jack Tame speaking about her party’s tax plan, which would introduce a tax of 1.75% on urban land and 0.5% on rural land. This would mean home owners sitting on land worth $500,000 would pay a land tax worth $8750 a year.

Wong also conceded that the party had not modelled any wealth flight under the scheme, despite the fact that it would hike income taxes on high earners and levy taxes on landowners of $24 billion a year.

The tax is designed to reduce house prices by 10-15%. The average Auckland sale price is currently about $950,000, meaning the policy would cost Auckland home owners about $140,000 in lost value.

Opportunity also wants to hike income tax rates. Income earned between $50,000 and $200,000 would be taxed at 34% and income above $200,000 would be taxed at 39%.

This pays for a citizen’s income payment of $19,400 a year, which means that most New Zealanders will be better off in income terms each year – although the 66% of households who own a home will be worse off to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost value.

You need to live in New Zealand for five of the last 10 years to qualify for the citizen’s income, which is why people returning home from overseas are left so badly off.

Wong noted that people returning home from overseas often did so not for economic reasons, but to “be closer to family”.

Her answer did not address whether it was fair to hit Kiwis returning to be with family with such high taxes.

Tame noted that 1.5 million New Zealanders were living overseas who might not want to return if they were to be hit with such high taxes.

“I think, if I was putting myself in those shoes and I was looking at coming back to New Zealand and I knew that there were big economic changes that were making this a more prosperous future for me and my kids, I would be willing to pay that tax because I knew I would be better off in the long run and my kids would be better off in the long run,” Wong said.

She said “there was a risk” that many New Zealanders would not return home under her policies but she said this was balanced out by the incentives created by the more productive economy Opportunity wanted to build.

Recent migrants would also be ineligible for the citizen’s income but would face higher taxes.

Wong also admitted that Opportunity had not modelled any wealth flight.

Wealth flight occurs when taxes get so high that people hide wealth or leave the country to avoid paying them. Recent wealth tax proposals from Labour in 2023 and the Greens in 2026 began a public debate on what is a reasonable assumption of wealth flight.

Wealth flight tends to be higher for wealth taxes which are easier to avoid. Land taxes are harder to flee from because it is difficult to hide land and impossible to take it out of the country.

“We haven’t put wealth flight into our modelling,” Wong said.

“The system we are creating is actually more attractive to people with high incomes – if they don’t own property or if they own modest amounts of property, they will be paying less tax because of the citizen’s income,” she said.

In New Zealand, it is relatively common for people with higher incomes to own property.