In a speech given at the NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) 2011 Tax Conference in Auckland on November 11th the New Zealand Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne recounted the tax achievements of the government for the 2011 year. According to the Minister, over the last 12 months the government, and the entire country, has faced a series of unfortunate events and disasters, such as the Christchurch earthquakes and the Rena oil spill. He claimed that the government had done everything possible to ... Read More

The government has approved several changes to the national tax system, in an effort to aid the wellbeing of families and businesses struck by the recent earthquake. In a media statement jointly released by the Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne and the Minister of Finance Bill English, it was conceded that New Zealand’s tax system was not forseen to handle the repercussions of disasters to the scale of the Christchurch earthquake, and several proportional changes will be added in the face of ... Read More

Peter Dunne’s income splitting proposal has hit a new roadblock after it failed to win the approval of the New Zealand Finance and Expenditure Committee. The New Zealand Finance and Expenditure Committee has evaluated the income sharing tax-bill brought forward by the Revenue Minister Peter Dunne, saying that the idea has merit but would be too costly to implement and contains several oversights. If enacted, the Taxation (Income-sharing Tax Credit) Bill would allow families with dependent children to split the parent's incomes evenly for ... Read More

A new Government-instated working group met for the first time in Wellington this week, marking further progress in the Government’s attempts to instate electronic filing procedures for an increasing number of tax documents. On October 7th the Software Developers' Working Group met in Wellington for its inaugural meeting. The group was formed by the New Zealand Government after the nationwide Making Tax Easier consultation process, which aimed to asses individuals’ and businesses’ needs in taxation administration. The Working Group will be tasked with ... Read More