Auckland Music Update :::: Gig Guide

Tomachi's live music gig guide and blog

NZ does not have an inheritance tax?

Posted by tomachi on November 23rd, 2024 filed in Gigs

England's boring politicians have come up with another really dumb tax: the partial repeal of the law that fully protected family farms during accession - complete relief from the standard inheritance tax in the UK of a whopping 40%!
Carefully put in place last century to ensure and protect food security.
In France, the only country in Europe with full food self-sufficiency meaning they do not have to rely on imports, farmers can access tax relief if they jump through administrative hoops to prove they work the land themselves.
Guy Singh-Watson, an organic farmer and founder of Riverford Organic vegetable boxes, who broadly supports the government’s plan, said: “Land in the French Vendée – where I have owned a 120-hectare (300-acre) farm for the past 15 years – is less than a 10th of the price of equivalent land in Devon, where I also farm. To be a farmer there, you have to be deemed fit to farm by the local administration. I doubt whether many landowners simply buying up farmland would pass that test.” He suggested a similar policy could be put in place in the UK, with true farmers given tax benefits.
The UK has 40% inheritance tax for some/ a lot of people over a threshold calculated before disbursement. But not family farmers since 1992 are at 0%, but now Labor has reintroduced a 20% inheritance tax for farms that are valued at more than £1m.
Seems to me £10m or £20m would be a far more sensible number?

No Tax Here

NZ, Australia, Singapore, Sweden and Norway are among a handful of countries which don’t charge inheritance tax at all!
In Europe death tax is done after the splits to family if at all; not before!!
UK citizens seem to love to end up needlessly waiting in queues.
I got allergic to dumb queues in 2006 when I did a 60 date tour of UK/Ireland with Breaks. In England, a "pie" is often a sit down meal with spuds, gravy and peas. And a "hamburger" is often precooked in a warmer at a takeaway shop unlike in NZ made fresh. Odd! Became a ninja at maneuvering through festivals. I digress.
UK You're doing it wrong
Countries like NZ need to get to grips with taxing the billionaire types (looking at you Apple NZ Inc*) but since a million doesn't buy much these days, the UK is doing it wrong.

PS The Guardian.says Apple paid almost no tax in New Zealand for at least a decade reports say in their 23 Mar 2017 reporting despite sales of $4.2 billion.

Apple casually never mentions their secret tax-haven NZ in their article "The facts about Apple’s tax payments". I just filed an OIA request for their past 10 years payments at FYI.ORG.NZ: High internal charging of iPhones by Apple Global to Apple NZ is how they do it.

OIA to IRD NZ for past 10 years payments by Apple in tax

Also they are my personnel yardstick: Apple is the largest taxpayer in the world we’ve paid over $35 billion USD in corporate income taxes over the past three years, plus billions of dollars more in property tax, payroll tax, sales tax and VAT. But not so much in NZD to IRD NZ?

They (Apple and IRD NZ) seem to be the perfect example to single out for investigation to check how our whole global tax system is function don't you agree?

Jeremy Clarkson Weighs In!


Crazy Shooting Star I Saw

Posted by tomachi on November 2nd, 2024 filed in Science

Shocking Green

This is the same green, not my pic

I saw a rare super-heavy kamacite Iron meteorite last night - initially very deeply coloured Cyan green unlike any I've seen before ~1 am on the 2nd November in Orewa coming down steep and fast over Rangitoto seemingly at Mach 40 (!) with a spooky weird ultra-bright green in the ionosphere that went at the last minute to orange then red as it sprouted petals and broke up after about 1 or 2 seconds as a green streak that reminded me of fireworks but upside down entering ionosphere at 40 degrees above the horizon quickly going straight then down then splatting into the atmosphere at 100 km altitude and 20 degrees above the horizon.

They are solid single crystal that form by very slowly cooling at rate of 100 celsius per Myr. That's a Megayear. Oh boy these guys take 10 million years to cool, beginning to crystalise at 750 C and precipitating from, 723 C into really cool looking metals. What the absolute frack? Ring the alarm! That's from another solar system. The most notable trace elements in kamacite are gallium, germanium, cobalt, copper, and chromium; but also bits of stardust like platinum and gold. Tangy. Weird. It's not like Mars rock, which is a common meteorite. Always magnetised and piezo-electric so it's making it's own electricity and getting zapped from ionosphere as it comes in. I thought it was a firework or UFO cos it was so bright green.

I noticed it as I looked East out to sea at Orewa's beach, joint hanging outta my gaping jaw as my eye-popping gaze turned South.

Naturally, I was hoping to meet Yoda and go for a ride in a spaceship... I'd tell him please just no warps outside the solar system cos I need to be home within 24 hours Earth time I gotta feed my cat. So long as I still keep rectal virginity and no big glowing probes implanted up my nose. Deal? I'd probably agree to donate sperm for their dirty little breeding experiments if that's what it takes to get a ride to the Moon OK hey is that Princess Leia?! You wanna wanga wid Jabba?

Iron-nickel meteorites are more easily recognized than other types of meteorites, even though they account for less than 5% of observed falls. However, they represent almost 90% of the mass of all collected meteorites, due to the way they fall fast without getting slowed by the air because of the momentum from their high mass, and mono-crystal nature making them quite slow melting. Crystals need a bit more heat to start melting initially.

Did you know that Earth is the most dense object in our solar system at 5.5 grams per cubic cm? More than the sun, Jupiter, Saturn etc by average by volume at surface.

Metallography of Iron-Nickel Meteorites
Iron-nickel meteorites are space rocks that are mostly made of iron, but also contain 5–30% nickel. They are a common type of meteorite found on Earth, and are the remnants of the cores of ancient asteroids. Iron-nickel meteorites are made up of two alloys, kamacite and taenite, which are only found in meteorites on Earth. Kamacite has a lower nickel concentration, while taenite has a higher concentration. Iron-nickel meteorites have a unique texture called the Widmanstätten pattern, which is caused by the interlocking of the different alloys. Iron-nickel meteorites are denser than other types of meteorites, which makes them more likely to survive entry into Earth's atmosphere. That explains the 2.5 seconds it took I think.

This is what the next version of Google search will look like... I found this as I'm on Google's public beta (testing) list

Sneak peek at Google's new AI enhanced SERPs (search engine results pages)