WELLINGTON — A convention room packed with four hundred of the nation’s top chief executives has unanimously voted to convert the corporate sector into a monastic order dedicated to the eternal suppression of public revenue, following a rousing evangelical sermon from ACT Leader David Seymour.
Seymour, addressing the BusinessNZ Election Conference via a laptop he admitted he did not know how to operate, delivered what political commentators have termed the Sermon on the Sub-Sect, inviting the audience to join his newly consecrated “Church of No New Taxes” while offering instant absolution for any historical encounters with the Inland Revenue Department (IRD).
“We welcome all repentant sinners to the sanctuary of zero fiscal contribution,” Seymour declared, leaning over the podium to address a sea of custom-tailored pinstripe suits. “It matters not if you have paid GST in the past. It matters not if you once accidentally declared a taxable fringe benefit. In our tabernacle, salvation is achieved purely through the aggressive write-off of depreciating office stationery.”
The speech reportedly triggered an immediate, collective spiritual awakening among the country’s business elite. Witnesses confirmed several chief financial officers broke down in tears of fiscal purity, while others immediately began burning IRD remittance slips in empty coffee cups as a sacrifice to the free market.
However, the divine liturgy was temporarily disrupted by the release of the Deloitte and Chapman Tripp Election Survey, which revealed a blasphemous rift within the congregation: 46 percent of surveyed corporate leaders confessed to privately entertaining the idea of a Capital Gains Tax.
In response to the heresy, Seymour immediately introduced an emergency baptismal rite involving the ritual dunking of corporate ledgers into fresh mineral water, cleansing them of any residual affinity for infrastructure funding.
Following Seymour’s address, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters took the stage to deliver a stern homily, warning the assembled executives that any business leader actively desiring a Capital Gains Tax was displaying symptoms of “severe moral decay, akin to late-stage Myanmar, or worse, a poorly managed municipal bowling club in Caracas.”
Peters then reportedly gestured toward a group of hedge fund managers and commanded them to “behave yourselves before I replace your entire board of directors with a retired naval commander.”
Meanwhile, Green Party Co-Leader Chlöe Swarbrick addressed the room to argue that a 25.5 percent business support rate for a wealth tax proved the Greens were actually the true voice of big business, proposing that large corporations replace their corporate social responsibility divisions with a simple, weekly tithe paid directly to the Ministry of Social Development.
By late afternoon, conference organizers confirmed that the entire business delegation had signed a binding vow of poverty regarding their tax declarations, while simultaneously demanding the Ministry of Transport immediately double the width of the Transmission Gully motorway using leftover divine grace.