17 Mar 2011

Cooks studies way to implement task force proposals

4:07 pm on 17 March 2011

Government agencies in the Cook Islands are considering how to implement an economic taskforce's proposals to increase the minimum wage, lower interest rates and abolish outer island taxes.

Those are the taskforce's short term recommendations, which have been submitted to government to consider in the next budget.

The Director of Policy and Planning in the Prime Minister's office, Elizabeth Wright-Koteka says more work needs to be done on the move to abolish company and income tax for the outer islands, which was an election policy of the ruling Cook Islands Party

"The taskforce is trying to work out how this could happen, for example maybe the option of looking at development zones where you have the northern group paying a different tax rate, some of the other islands in the south, in Aitutaki and Rarotonga and so forth."

Elizabeth Wright-Koteka says they will also have to consider whether big companies could use the new tax regime to evade taxes.