Pitched as "the largest tax cut in New Zealand history for low-income working people" — a wholesale redesign that shifts the tax burden off wages and onto land, while paying every adult a universal income floor.

The Policy: TOP Tax Reset — September 2023 →

What it does:

• Introduces an annual Land Value Tax (LVT) at 1.75% on urban residential and commercial land and 0.5% on rural/farmland, levied only on the land component, not buildings — a design that cannot be avoided by shifting assets offshore or into trusts.
• Pairs the land tax with a Citizen's Income of $370 per week ($19,400 a year) for almost all adults aged 18+ who meet standard residency requirements, replacing jobseeker and student allowances while maintaining top-ups for superannuitants, parents, and people with disabilities.
• Tax brackets would shift to 28% (up to $50,000), 34% ($50,001–$200,000) and 39% (over $200,000), with the income-tax burden significantly reduced for lower earners who gain the Citizen's Income floor.
• The party projects the LVT will raise around $4 billion a year over and above the cost of the Citizen's Income (on 2024 land values), and projects a 10–15% fall in property prices by redirecting investment away from land speculation.
• Builds in protections for the "land-rich, cash-poor": retirees can defer payment until estate settlement and farmers can defer during tough seasons; Māori land, conservation land, social housing, and Treaty settlement land are exempt from the LVT.
• An earlier version under leader Raf Manji (October 2022) used a $15,000 tax-free threshold funded by a 0.75% residential LVT raising $6.75–7.5 billion a year — establishing the land-tax-funds-tax-relief architecture the party has refined ever since.
• Claims about 70% of New Zealanders would see higher incomes and 20% no substantial change, with the burden falling mainly on owners of high-value urban land; projected to lift at least 50,000 families out of poverty.
• A companion compulsory KiwiSaver 2.0 with 12% total contributions (6% employer, 6% employee) phased in over eight years rounds out the package.

The result:

This is the Opportunity Party's signature policy since founder Gareth Morgan first proposed taxing all capital — including housing equity — in 2016. Under Qiulae Wong, who took the leadership in November 2025 after the party rebranded from The Opportunities Party to Opportunity, the architecture has been refined into the 2026 Tax Reset package. The economic case for an LVT is unusually well-credentialled: Shamubeel Eaqub, chief economist at Simplicity, called it "the cleanest, most fair, efficient kind of tax we can use" because land cannot be hidden or shifted. New Zealand's own Tax Working Group had earlier favoured a land tax over a capital gains tax for the same reasons. But the design choices are contested. Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold flagged the cash-flow risk: a recurring tax on an illiquid asset can burden people — particularly retirees and cash-poor farmers — who lack income to pay annual bills. A May 2026 independent analysis at Good Ideas NZ identified a costing gap: the $62.8 billion gross Citizen's Income bill implies 3.2 million recipients, yet Statistics NZ counts 4.1 million adults aged 18+, a 900,000-person discrepancy requiring explanation. Tax specialists have also noted horizontal-equity concerns: the LVT targets one asset class regardless of the owner's overall wealth. By late June 2026 the party was polling at 4.6% in a 1News Verian poll — its best result at this stage historically — and Wong argued Opportunity could become a "kingmaker," replacing New Zealand First. However, no new party without established parliamentary veterans has crossed 5% under MMP since 1996.

The impacts to watch:

• House prices vs. owner equity: a projected 10–15% price fall would benefit first-home buyers but erode the balance-sheet position of recent purchasers with large mortgages.
• Cash-flow shock for the land-rich, income-poor: the deferral and exemption design must hold firm under fiscal pressure; if carve-outs widen to reduce political pain, the revenue base and LVT's efficiency benefits both shrink.
• Behavioural change: proponents argue the LVT will push idle urban land into more productive use; critics warn of valuation disputes, court challenges, and public backlash similar to local-government rates controversies.
• Electoral viability: with the party sitting at 3–4% through most of the 2026 campaign, the real test of the Tax Reset is whether it can carry the party across the 5% threshold — without a coalition anchor or an electorate lifeline.

Neutrality note: this entry summarises a contested tax-and-redistribution policy. Figures for projected revenue, distributional outcomes and poverty impacts are the party's own modelling unless attributed to an independent source. Named economists and analysts are quoted for their own positions only.