Personal tax cuts remain high on the wish list of nearly every working New Zealander but they will not be much use to the people who have lost or are losing their jobs at PPCS, Fisher and Paykel Appliances and Tamahine in the South, and PPCS and Sealord further north.
What the Government has so far failed to understand that if it takes the credit for every job created since it was elected in 1999, then it must take some of the blame when jobs are lost.
Investing more than $1 billion in a fast broadband network is also unlikely to excite many workers facing redundancy unless it can be shown that fast Internet can help save a business costs and therefore jobs.
Business leaders, tax practitioners and economists spoken to by the Otago Daily Times are not expecting anything radical from Dr Cullen when he reads his budget in Parliament.
The most blunt comment came from WHK Taylors tax partner Scott Mason.
"What many businesses really want is a change of government but maybe they will get that for Christmas rather than in the budget."
He called for a "meaningful reduction" in compliance costs rather than the expected minor changes and "fair" tax cuts to keep skilled labour from leaving for Australia.
Polson Higgs tax partner Michael Turner said businesses, like households, were under considerable cost pressure so they would be hoping there was nothing in the budget which put increased costs into their operations.
Past examples of government-imposed costs included the additional week of holidays and compulsory employer KiwiSaver contributions.
"Businesses are also seeing increased costs through wage negotiations as employees struggle to meet the increased cost of living.
"Accordingly, I think there is broad business support for tax cuts which provide employees with greater take-home pay."
The issue of personal tax cuts was causing Dr Cullen difficulty as he considered weakening economic conditions, high interest rates and a relatively high inflation rate together with the groundswell of support for personal tax cuts in an election year, Mr Turner said.
Deloitte Dunedin tax partner Steve Thompson agreed that Dr Cullen was under pressure to deliver tax cuts in a weakening economy.
"He has always said he is putting money away for a rainy day. Now, there is a snowstorm on the way."
Mr Thompson believed Dr Cullen would "play around" with the tax cuts by first moving the brackets upwards so fewer people were paying the top tax rate of 39%.
If the thresholds were moved up over several years, Dr Cullen could appear to give "significant tax cuts" by selling the future message.
Other alternatives included a family package to help people pay higher petrol and food prices or a tax rebate which could be targeted at parts of the community so they could have "X amount" of dollars in their pocket by voting for Labour, he said.
Otago Chamber of Commerce chief executive John Christie said the issue of personal tax cuts would come as no surprise to most people given the surrounding debate but he would like more money put into industry training.
"I would like to see a better alignment between polytechnics and industry to provide on-the-job-training and to provide practical skills that are in shortage."
Investment in infrastructure was likely to feature, particularly roading projects around Wellington and AucklandMoney targeted at businesses hoping to export was expected in the budget along with offering further assistance programmes to access new markets.
"It would be nice to see the simplification of some of the current taxes like fringe benefit tax and maybe some money put into housing projects which could see some local economic benefits and improve the housing stock," he said.
