WELLINGTON: Drug dealers in New Zealand would pay more than NZD 245 million in income taxes and GST every year, if their trade was legalized. Late last week the Ministry of Health of New Zealand released its annual Drug Harm Index, showing the financial impacts that illicit drugs have in New Zealand.
In the report the Ministry of Health claimed that the total amount of GST and corporate income tax evaded by drug dealers amounts to approximately NZD 245.4 million dollars per year. The total of evaded GST is approximately NZD 78.3 million, while total of corporate income tax is NZD 167.1 million.
The total tax impact of the trade of hallucinogenic was NZD 0.7 million, while opioids and sedatives accounted for NZD 0.78 million of revenues, while amphetamines was estimated to be NZD 29.8 million, and cannabinoids amounted to a total of NZD 214.1 million. The estimates for the tax revenue losses were based on calculations of potential revenues and sales of drugs, if they were legalized and continued to be sold at current levels.
