NZ Tax Man To Enforce Real-Time PAYE Reporting

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

22 August 2019

New Zealand's Inland Revneue Department has said it is to challenge those employers who are currently failing to file their payroll information every payday.

Since April 1, all employers have been required to send their payroll information to Inland Revenue at the same time as they pay their staff. There has been around 2.5 million payday filings since it became mandatory.

Inland Revenue said that while 90 percent of businesses are successfully meeting the new obligation, a small minority have failed to comply.

"We think the main reasons some have fallen behind are a lack of awareness and understanding about their obligations and a perception that it's difficult to send Inland Revenue the necessary employment information" said the IRD's small business segment leader, Richard Owen. "These are obstacles that can be easily overcome."

"We would prefer if those customers got in touch with us and we can help them work through their situation."

"Our analysis shows most of those yet to start payday filing are businesses with fewer than five employees and we want to help them get back on track."

Payday filing is integrated into the process of running a payroll in most of the software applications in the market, the IRD said, noting that it often requires a few extra clicks and all the employment information is filed directly to Inland Revenue.

Otherwise taxpayers can file the required information quickly through the Inland Revenue's online portal, myIR. After the first filing of employment information, the free service pre-populates some of the information required based on previous filings.

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