The major Working for Families review undertaken by IRD, Treasury and MSD is taking place behind closed doors. There are no published terms of reference, no timeline and no public consultations at this stage.

Meaningful reform to WFF is well over-due. There is much unconscious bias and implicit racism in the current WFF.

If the income from work is not in itself an incentive, and needs to be topped up by the government to make it worth the effort, then that raises another question. If work isn’t enough on its own, then isn’t the In-Work Tax Credit functioning as a tool to ensure income adequacy?

People should be wary of recent criticism of Working for Families (WFF) tax credits as being a poverty trap. The problem is not the system itself, but the poor design from its inception.

Why do we need tax credits? Tax credits keep the whole shebang of family income afloat. Wages are now so far behind the basic costs of living that, without tax credits, very few families could survive.