Top Stories Friday 3 March 2017
The Government will outline its plan today for making global corporate giants pay their fair share of tax in New Zealand. Labour says they'd like to see the announcement today to be a serious plan, not a lightweight one. "It's about fairness," Labour's revenue spokesman, Michael Wood, says. "A nurse pays her tax. A guy who runs a concreting company pays his tax. We shouldn't have some of the biggest companies in the world coming to New Zealand and not paying their fair share of tax." Shares in the image messenging app Snapchat have jumped after its listing on the NYSE. Financial Times United States equities correspondent Nicole Bullock says it was a very exciting day on the trading floor. "People were just so happy to have another big deal like this because we've basically had a drought for big hot tech company listings for the last couple of years." Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal has quit New Zealand. Transparency International argues a clean reputation could be worth billions of dollars to New Zealand over time, and is far more important than a small and secretive foreign trust industry. Donald Trump's top law enforcer Jeff Sessions is in hot water over claims he met with Russian officials twice last year during the election campaign. Now Democrats want him gone from the position and some Republicans want his to recuse himself from any investigations involving Russia. A Kumeu facility built for a one-off film production will be used as the basis for a permanent film studio, which hopes to attract more overseas productions.
