7 Sep 2010

Savings group will consider govt incentives

5:32 pm on 7 September 2010

The head of a group set up by the Government to look at national savings says it will consider the idea of taxpayer-funded incentives.

The group, which is due to report back by the end of the year, had its first meeting over the weekend.

The Minister of Finance has rejected the notion that the answer to the country's savings problem is to be found in taxpayer-funded incentives.

The head of the savings group, former BNZ chairman Kerry McDonald, says the group is aware of the need to limit the cost to the Government.

But he says the group believes it has leeway to look at ways of bolstering national savings that will have a short-term cost to the Government.

That could include tax incentives and inflation adjustments to taxation on savings.