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Associate Finance Minister David Seymour remains committed to cutting back on public spending to fund tax cuts.��

The Government has faced pressure in the past week over the promise of tax relief in this year’s Budget, amid reports of a $3.3 billion fiscal hole over the next four years.��

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)��this week��also urged the Government to ensure it can pay for its promised tax cuts without borrowing more.��

The IMF again called for introducing a comprehensive capital gains tax, combined with a land value tax, and changes to corporate income tax.��

However, two out of three coalition partners have promised no new taxes - with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon��ruling it out earlier this week��and Seymour committing to it today in a conversation with��The Front Page.��

“I think we need to be really clear here - the Government doesn’t have a problem with not enough tax. It’s taxing more than any time in history, taxing about 140 billion a year, that is enough.��

“The Government is now having to actually tighten its belt. Long overdue, but we believe we can do it and that’s more important than adding new taxes,” Seymour said.��

“I see the IMF again saying, ‘oh, you need a capital gains tax. Every country has one. The only countries that don’t have one are New Zealand and Switzerland’. But, I say, let’s be more like Switzerland.”��

Seymour has been a champion for the Government to find savings. However, there has been one area of belt-tightening that Seymour agrees went too far.��

The Ministry of Disabled People��announced this week��new limits on what disabled people could purchase with their funding. It also said there would be changes to how equipment like wheelchairs and home modifications were prioritised.��

It prompted a “please explain” from Finance Minister Nicola Willis - and clarification from Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds about Budget caps and the fact that order reductions have nothing to do with the Government’s call for cuts.��

“I think the Minister for Disabilities already said that was a mistake,” Seymour told��The Front Page.��

“While I’m all in favour of reducing government spending, cutting taxes, putting stuff over to private enterprise and households and businesses making choices, you know, I’m that guy - I’d like to think more than anyone - we do have a responsibility in our society to help people who genuinely have no other source of help and have no other way of changing their situation,” he said.��

“And a person who is living with a disability, whether they were born with it, whether they have had some sort of accident or event in their life, you know, I think we all have an obligation to help them.”��

��for more from David Seymour on:��

• Why the Government isn’t anti-media��
• Why there’s no such thing as a free lunch��
• His thoughts on Winston Peters comparing the previous government to Nazi Germany��
• The public’s response to the new government��
• His e-bike accident - and why he’s not happy with Herald’s Simon Wilson��

The Front Page��is a daily news podcast from the��New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined ��һ�ǿ����� in 2016.��

You can follow the podcast at��,��,��, or wherever you get your podcasts.��