24 May 2001

Funding boost for IRD

The Inland Revenue Department has been given new funding of $13.1 million a year to improve its enforcement capability and to help it recruit and retain staff.

"It is essential to the integrity of the tax system that the public has confidence in IRD's ability to enforce the tax laws," Revenue Minister Michael Cullen said.

"And the increase makes good fiscal sense too as the additional audit and debt collection activities the new money will buy are expected to bring in an extra $77.5 million a year in tax.

"This is revenue which is already legally due the Government and which we can use to advance our social and economic goals," Dr Cullen said.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>