The Green Party's 2026 Tax Plan: Wealth Tax & Brackets

This is an election proposal, not current law. The Green Party announced “A Tax System for All of Us” on 21 June 2026, ahead of the 7 November 2026 general election. It would only take effect if the Greens are part of the next government and the legislation passes through Parliament. New Zealand’s current tax settings remain exactly as they are today unless and until that happens.

The Greens are the only other party besides Labour to have released a fully costed 2026 tax-policy document — but their package is structured very differently. Where Labour proposes a single new tax (a capital gains tax), the Greens propose a coordinated set of seven changes: new income-tax brackets, a wealth tax, an inheritance/gift tax, a higher company tax rate for large firms, a bank levy, enforcement of an existing offshore-profit withholding tax, and reversing recent landlord tax settings. For how this fits alongside every other party’s policy, see every party’s 2026 tax policy compared.

New income-tax brackets

The Greens’ plan replaces the current PAYE brackets with a more stepped structure, funded by the other measures below:

The party’s own document says 96% of New Zealanders would get a tax cut under this structure, with the first $10,000 anyone earns becoming tax-free. Its own worked examples show the weekly benefit falling as income rises through the cuts, turning into a net cost above roughly $160,000 a year — for example, a $-20 a week change at $170,000 and a $-181 a week change at $300,000, reflecting the new 45% top rate.

The wealth tax

A 2.5% annual tax applies to an individual’s net assets — property, companies, shares and bonds, minus mortgages and other debt — above $10 million, or above $20 million for a couple. The family home is fully exempt regardless of value. High-value personal property such as artwork is included only above $50,000 and valued at its insured amount. Māori land under Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, and the assets of Post-Settlement Governance Entities, are excluded. Wealth held in trusts is apportioned to the settlor (discretionary trusts) or to each beneficiary’s interest (fixed-interest trusts) for the purpose of the tax. The party’s document says this would apply to roughly the wealthiest 0.3% of New Zealanders.

Capital Acquisitions Tax — inheritances and gifts

A 33% tax applies to inheritances and gifts valued above $1 million received by an individual — the family home and family farms are exempt, and small gifts fall under the threshold. The person receiving the inheritance or gift pays the tax, not the estate. The party’s document estimates this would apply to about 1,100 people a year, and sets the 33% rate to match the top personal and trust tax rates.

Company tax, bank levy and big tech

Three separate measures target larger businesses:

• Company tax rises from 28% to 33% for businesses with annual turnover exceeding $30 million — an estimated 0.7% of businesses, including large supermarkets, energy companies and banks. Small and medium enterprises keep the current 28% rate.
• A new 0.06% levy on the total liabilities of banks with more than $100 billion in liabilities — in practice the four large Australian-owned banks (ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac) — modelled on a similar levy in Australia.
• Enforcement of the existing 5% withholding tax on service fees, licence fees and royalties that multinationals (the party names Google, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Visa and Mastercard as examples) shift offshore through related-party structures, rather than a new tax rate.

Property: bright-line and landlord interest, not a CGT

Unlike Labour, the Greens do not propose a capital gains tax. Their property lever works through two existing settings instead: extending the bright-line test from 2 years back to 10 years (its length under the previous Labour government), and removing landlords’ ability to deduct mortgage interest against their rental income, reversing a change reinstated from 2024. Under the bright-line test, a gain on a residential investment property sold within the window is added to the seller’s income and taxed at their marginal rate; this does not apply to the family home. For how this compares with Labour’s proposed flat-rate CGT, see Labour’s CGT vs the bright-line test.

How much revenue, and the correction

The package’s individual measures raise, on the party’s own costings (Parliamentary Library modelling), the following over the first four years:

Summed across the four years, the new-tax measures alone (excluding the tax cuts and IRD funding) total roughly $32 billion — the figure most often quoted in headlines. The net figure the party’s document reports for its bottom line is the smaller “Net total” row above, roughly $21.8 billion over four years. These two figures answer different questions and should not be added together.

A correction happened here once already. The version of the policy document published on 21 June 2026 mistakenly recorded the $100–106 million a year in Inland Revenue implementation funding as revenue rather than a cost, which inflated the net-total row to $5.35 billion (2027/28) rising to $5.94 billion (2030/31) — about $800 million too high across the four years. Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick acknowledged the error as a “typo” after RNZ’s inquiries, and the party re-issued the document with the corrected figures on 22 June 2026, which are the ones used in this article.

What isn’t specified

The party’s document does not model behavioural responses to the tax changes beyond an adjustment for likely avoidance and evasion on the wealth tax, and notes that reducing overall income-tax revenue would likely increase GST and corporate-tax revenue through flow-on effects that are not costed here. As with any pre-election policy, implementation details — administration of the wealth tax’s asset valuations, for example — would be settled through legislation if the party is in a position to enact it.

Where this sits in the campaign

The election is on 7 November 2026. Labour and the Greens are the two parties with full costed tax-policy documents; Te Pāti Māori released its own costed “Kiwi Tax Plan” on 26 August 2026. National, ACT and New Zealand First have not published comparable comprehensive tax-bracket policies. See every party’s 2026 tax policy compared for the full picture, and Labour’s capital gains tax explained for the other major costed proposal on the table.