NZ’s wealth transfer is under way, but generosity has been cut off at the knees

Friday, 19 June 2026

Other countries are nudging donations and gifting from the $1.6 trillion generational wealth transfer to good causes. New Zealand, meanwhile, is capping significant generosity.

Eleanor Cater is chief executive of Community Foundations of Aotearoa NZ.

OPINION: You will have heard of the remarkable shift that is quietly under way across New Zealand. The baby boomer wealth is on the move - $1.6 trillion, starting its slow shift over the next 25 years. That's houses, farms, businesses, investments and savings that are going to change hands and it's the largest transfer of wealth in New Zealand history.

Other countries have spotted the opportunity and acted. Australia noticed the wealth transfer heading their way and set a national goal to double charitable giving by 2030. Canada built bequest incentives that nudge gifts in wills to charity, gifts of shares and securities, and gifts of ecological and cultural importance. Ireland passed a National Philanthropy Policy, and England a strategy to connect giving with place, ensuring communities outside London and major cities benefit. Singapore has a national strategy that offers an extraordinary 250% tax deduction on donations - and even matches donations directly.

New Zealand? We have a simple tax credit for cash donations - 33 cents in every dollar. And, courtesy of Budget 2026, from next year this will be capped for donations over $100k. We offer no incentives for gifts of shares, property, gifts of cultural and heritage significance or bequests. We have no national strategy.

Other countries have tools that we don't, and they are making it easier to give more. Curiously, we chose this moment, when the wealth transfer is already underway, to cap generosity and cut incentives for the big donations off at the knees.

It's not even about tax really and this is where the debate gets really interesting (and where we find that politicians and media sometimes miss the point). When someone donates to a charity, they're not spending money on themselves. They're directing it toward public benefit. So, the theory goes should that be taxed the same as buying a new car or going on holiday? Most countries have concluded the answer is no – and not as some special favour to the wealthy, but because it makes sense.

There's also a practical argument. Governments spend money on hospitals and food banks and arts funding. Charities spend money on exactly those same things, are more nimble and have more intimate knowledge of what a community actually needs. When the government incentivises donations, it's essentially saying: we trust you to direct some of this money well. For every tax credit given the donor carries two-thirds of the cost and the government leverages private capital two to one – which seems an exceptionally good deal for ‘New Zealand Inc’.

And then there's that hard-to-measure thing which is arguably worth much more. When people give, volunteer, and contribute to their communities, they're building social cohesion and a nation where people look out for each other. The conditions for a generous nation are complex, take a long time to build and can take a short time to erode.

All of this is happening as the 2026 World Giving Report ranks New Zealand 70th in the world for charitable giving as a proportion of income. Seventieth. We like to think of ourselves as a generous, community-minded country and, individually, many of us are. But the structures we've built - or failed to build - are working against that instinct rather than with it.

The same world research found that where governments visibly encourage giving, generosity is nearly three times higher. Culture follows leadership, in other words when the government signals that giving matters, people give more. When it signals that big donors are potential tax dodgers and a ‘fiscal risk’ to be managed and capped, our trust and culture of generosity can erode, often slowly and invisibly.

$1.6 trillion will change hands over 25 years, and whether any meaningful portion of that will go towards building the future of New Zealand is yet to be seen. Given all the international evidence – which shows that generosity can be nurtured and encouraged – this debate is not just a policy choice, it’s a moral one.