Tax is not something we are particular fond of however it is necessary to help fund our economy. The IRD is working hard on making sure everyone pays their fair share. With international agreements and the use of technology its pretty hard to hide from your obligations.

Here are some interesting stats. Make sure you read all the way to the bottom where you can see the amount of revenue ‘found’ from people who tried not to pay their tax!

  • Nearly 3.5 million people paid pay-as-you earn (PAYE) or filed a personal tax return
  • 202,000 employers filed more than 2 million employer monthly schedules with pay-as-you earn deductions for employees
  • 377,628 company tax returns were filed
  • 640,000 registered customers filed more than 3 million goods and services tax returns
  • $2.2 billion distributed in working families tax credits
  • $473 million collected from more than 164,000 parents who pay child support. $287 million distributed to carers. The balance is retained by the Government to help offset the cost of benefits paid
  • $6.0 billion transferred to scheme providers. As at 30 June 2018 there were 2.9 million people enrolled in KiwiSaver
  • $1.3 billion collected from 719,187 student loan customers, up 5.9% from last year
  • $288 million paid for parental leave to 41,927 parents
  • $73.0 million of revenue collected to help fund government programmes, an increase of $2.9 billion from the previous year. $3.3 billion of it is paid to Working for Families Tax Credits, KiwiSaver, paid parental leave payments and payroll subsidies.
  • $145m in revenue from identifying different tax positions in the hidden economy which came from:
    • not declaring cash sales
    • not recording employees and paying them in cash with no PAYE deducted
    • only declaring part of an employee’s payments so that they can incorrectly obtain other entitlements like Working for Families Tax Credits.
  • As at 30 June 2018, the tax debt (excluding student loans in default and child support debt) was $3.1 billion, a 3.7% increase from the previous year when debt dropped 36%, helped by a $2.2 billion write-off of mainly irrecoverable and aged debt. This year $613 million of debt was written off.
  • Through investigations total tax differences were identified of:
    • $1.08 billion where customers did not get things right for the year ending 30 June 2018 (return on investment was $7.86 for every $1 spent)
    • $199 million from investigations in complex technical issues, aggressive tax planning, property compliance (return on investment was $6.74 for every $1 spent)
    • $242 million from investigations into aggressive tax planning and other complex technical issues
    • $117 million from property speculators didn’t meet their obligations, with an emphasis on speculation in and around new developments, infill housing and properties that have been sold within a short duration.
  • $7 million of Resident Land Withholding tax was deducted and paid from properties sold by overseas-based vendors who are subject to the bright-line test
  • $13.2 million from fraud, including customers who attempt to obtain refunds, claims or other entitlements by intentionally trying to mislead or deceive.

(source IRD Annual Report 2017-2018)