Business tax relief ranked last among priorities for 100 New Zealand business owners and leaders in an Icehouse Ventures survey released ahead of the 7 November 2026 general election.
Infrastructure investment, health and energy topped the list. Energy policy drew the worst rating for government support.
Seventy percent of respondents preferred long-term productivity measures over short-term cost relief. Three in four said a party’s business and economic policy would be a key factor in how they vote.
Icehouse Ventures, New Zealand’s most active early-stage venture capital firm, has invested more than $800 million across more than 390 companies. CEO Robbie Paul has framed the results as evidence of misalignment between what growth-oriented firms say they need and what governments often prioritise.
The sample is smaller and more election-focused than earlier Icehouse SME work. It draws from the firm’s network of growth-oriented owners rather than a fully random national frame. Directional findings still land squarely in the fiscal and campaign debate.
New Zealand’s company tax rate remains a flat 28 percent on net taxable income, unchanged since 2011. The OECD average statutory corporate rate sits near 21.2 percent. In the Tax Foundation’s 2025 International Tax Competitiveness Index, New Zealand ranked third overall among OECD countries but 31st on corporate tax.
The Coalition’s signature growth tax measure is Investment Boost, introduced in Budget 2025 from 22 May 2025. Firms can immediately deduct 20 percent of the cost of eligible new or new-to-NZ depreciable assets, with standard depreciation on the residual 80 percent.
Treasury and Inland Revenue estimated the policy would lift GDP by 1 percent, wages by 1.5 percent and the capital stock by 1.6 percent over 20 years, with around half the gains in the first five years. Officials argued it delivers more bang for buck than a broad company-rate cut because it targets new investment.
Labour’s 2026 Small Business Action Plan offers a competing package. It would lift the low-value asset write-off from $1,000 to $10,000 for firms with turnover below $10 million from 1 July 2027, raise the GST registration threshold to $80,000 from 1 July 2028, and require large businesses to pay small suppliers within 15 days on invoices of $25,000 or less.
Deloitte New Zealand notes the tax elements are costed at $1.56 billion over four years and funded by refocusing or repealing Investment Boost for broader use. That sets a clear election choice between a broad investment incentive and more SME-targeted cashflow and compliance measures.
Energy constraints help explain why power ranked high and support for energy policy ranked poorly. Indigenous gas production has fallen sharply in recent years. Industrial users have faced high gas prices and electricity dry-year risk. Sense Partners analysis cited by ministers put the GDP cost of higher energy prices at $5.2 billion in 2025.
Budget 2026 responded with capital for generation and firming and a Gas Transition Loan Guarantee Scheme. The Crown will guarantee 80 percent of eligible bank loans, targeting up to $1.2 billion of lending, with $48 million appropriated to cover potential losses. The Government also committed earlier to an LNG import pathway for dry-year cover.
Infrastructure more broadly—hospitals, roads such as Cambridge to Piarere, rail, schools and courts—received elevated capital attention in Budget 2026 amid the National Infrastructure Plan process. Health capacity remains a chronic pressure point for households and employers.
Earlier Icehouse work still surfaces tax and compliance pain. A May 2025 State of SME report (n=353) listed tax relief and simplification among support asks. A December 2024 community survey for the Small Business Advisory Group flagged rising costs, high taxes, cashflow, funding access, compliance and workforce issues. BusinessNZ’s 2025 sentiment survey found 61 percent viewed the 28 percent company rate as too high or uncompetitive for foreign investment, while policy-reversal uncertainty after elections ranked as a top confidence destroyer.
BDO’s May 2026 Business Performance Index, based on 537 leaders surveyed in April, found external economic and political factors the two weakest performance attributes. Political positivity had declined 7 percent since September.
For the fiscal track, the ranking underscores a binding-constraint problem. OBEGAL and debt trajectories limit new operating spend. Scarce capital and regulatory bandwidth may deliver higher returns through energy security and infrastructure delivery than through further cuts to an imputation-integrated company rate alone.
Campaigns that lead with tax packages while under-weighting multi-year energy and infrastructure pipelines risk talking past the firms that say productivity enablers matter more. Parties will be judged on whether manifesto line items match those constraints through Budget 2027 and beyond.
