Winston Peters on exporter's tax rate

From Stuff

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says his party wants to cut the corporate tax rate for exporters from 28 per cent to 20 per cent.

More mercantalism from Peters. Will it never die? Why not lower the rate rate for all business? What is so special about exporters? In short, nothing. Adam Smith pointed out more than 240 years ago that "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production" and that the measure of a country's true wealth, is the total of its production and commerce. That is, a country's wealth is what the people of that country can consume. The great 19th century French economic pamphleteer Frédéric Bastiat wrote, "Consumption is the end, the final cause, of all economic phenomena, and it is consequently in consumption that their ultimate and definitive justification is to be found." Note also that exports are things that we produce and send to other (overseas) people. That is, they are goods and services that we produce but do not consume and thus they lower our welfare. Imports on the other hand, are goods and services that other counties produce and send to us to increase our consumption. This means imports increase our welfare. So imports are welfare increasing and exports are welfare decreasing. Therefore "imports are good; exports are bad"

But this does raise the question of why do we bother to export and not just import? The obvious answer is that exports are the way we pay for our imports. If we want people to send their goods and services to us we have to send our goods and services to them in exchange. Adam Smith also noted that in any free exchange, both sides must benefit. The buyer profits, just as the seller does, because the buyer values whatever he gives up less than the goods he obtains. That's why we trade at all.