Looking to further clamp down on tax evasion and to raise more tax revenues, the IRD is offering tax cheats more time to come forward. Last week the Inland Revenue Department announced that it is extending its deadline for disclosure of “Penny and Hooper” style tax arrangements to March 31st 2013. The disclosure program is [...]

Looking to further clamp down on tax evasion and to raise more tax revenues, the IRD is offering tax cheats more time to come forward. Last week the Inland Revenue Department announced that it is extending its deadline for disclosure of "Penny and Hooper" style tax arrangements to March 31st 2013. The disclosure program is aimed at taxpayers who use trusts to hide their incomes and create artificial structures intended to illegitimately lower their tax obligations. Under the disclosure programs, taxpayers who come forward ... Read More

The Inland Revenue Department is testing the waters with a new tax evasion case, seeing if a handful of trans-Tasman companies have used select financial instruments to unfairly lower their tax obligations. The New Zealand Inland Revenue Department is currently engaged in several legal proceedings over allegations of tax evasion against the local subsidiaries of [...]

The Inland Revenue Department is testing the waters with a new tax evasion case, seeing if a handful of trans-Tasman companies have used select financial instruments to unfairly lower their tax obligations. The New Zealand Inland Revenue Department is currently engaged in several legal proceedings over allegations of tax evasion against the local subsidiaries of several Australian based companies. The accusations revolve around the use of "optional convertible notes" (OCN) to avoid New Zealand based tax liabilities. On September 20th Dr Moorad Choudhry, ... Read More

Following the recent Goods and Service Tax rate increase, the Inland revenue Department has issued fresh warning to anyone considering making illegitimate tax claims on property transactions, saying that the Department’s ability to catch offenders has been greatly increased. On November 10th Martin Scott, Group Manager of Assurance at the IRD, revealed that the department [...]

Following the recent Goods and Service Tax rate increase, the Inland revenue Department has issued fresh warning to anyone considering making illegitimate tax claims on property transactions, saying that the Department's ability to catch offenders has been greatly increased. On November 10th Martin Scott, Group Manager of Assurance at the IRD, revealed that the department now posses the tools necessary to monitor all GST claims surroundings property purchases. He commented on the capability, saying “…if someone thinks their activity might be overlooked in ... Read More

An Auckland based accountant has been sentenced to two and a half years of jail time, after being found guilty of committing or being connected to 74 charges of tax fraud and evasion. James Colin Raea has been a member of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants for 12 years, in that time he [...]

An Auckland based accountant has been sentenced to two and a half years of jail time, after being found guilty of committing or being connected to 74 charges of tax fraud and evasion. James Colin Raea has been a member of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants for 12 years, in that time he has allegedly been personally involved in tax fraud worth NZD 312 600, and an additional NZD 864 049 through companies he was involved with. Recently, at the ... Read More