Hon Michael Woodhouse

Minister of Revenue
7 July 2016

Interest and investment tax proposals released

A discussion document released today could simplify taxpayers’ end-of-year processes while improving accuracy in the system, says Revenue Minister Michael Woodhouse.

“The discussion document, Investment income information, is the sixth in a series of public consultation documents and seeks to improve the administration of tax on income earned from investments,” Mr Woodhouse says.

“Payers of interest, dividends and taxable Māori authority distributions currently provide tax certificates to the recipients of the income. Income earners then need to gather together all these certificates from their various income sources to meet their end of year tax obligations.

“It would be much more efficient for Inland Revenue to collect that information direct from the payers and use it to pre-populate the recipients’ tax records.”

To achieve this, the discussion document proposes that:

• companies that pay dividends and Māori authorities will provide the same level of reporting to Inland Revenue as banks and portfolio investment entities (PIEs) currently do
•
• all payers of investment income would provide this detailed information to Inland Revenue more frequently.

“While taxable distributions from Māori authorities to their members are not investment income, they are subject to the same type of tax which is why they are considered in the proposals,” Mr Woodhouse says.

The discussion document can be found at www.makingtaxsimpler.ird.govt.nz.

Submissions close on 19 August 2016.

ends

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