Hon Todd McClay
Minister of Revenue

1 August 2014

IR4U Hawke’s Bay campaign a success

Revenue Minister Todd McClay has said that the IR4U Save Time Campaign recently run in the Hawke’s Bay has been a success and that similar ‘listening’ campaigns will be rolled out to other parts of the country as IRD focuses on simplifying the tax system.

The IR4U pilot, targeted small business owners and asked customers what Inland Revenue could do to save them time,” Mr McClay says.

Between 8 May and 19 June nearly 1400 people contributed to the campaign.

The public were presented with two ideas for saving time and asked to text the one that was most important to them to Inland Revenue. They then received a text back directing them to ird.govt.nz/savetime where they could rank all six ideas and make additional suggestions.

“For such a localised campaign that is an impressive response, I am told that the campaign reached over 70 per cent of small business owners in the Hawke’s Bay area.”

“Website improvements, email alert reminders and simplifying the way in which tax returns are filed were popular with submitters.”

“The submissions will be used by the Tax Simplification Panel, the Business Transformation project team and the wider organisation to help Inland Revenue develop systems to make tax compliance as easy as possible.”

The success of IR4U, particularly in engaging with the small business sector provides Inland Revenue with the opportunity to roll out similar ‘listening’ campaigns across other parts of the country and promote to individuals as well.

“The recently announced Taxpayer’s Simplification Panel will also provide New Zealanders with an opportunity to have their say in simplifying the way tax is paid.”

People can submit their queries, ideas and concerns to the Simplification Panel, regardless of any other specific campaigns, by emailing simpletax@ird.govt.nz.

“IRD’s ongoing customer engagement strategies are helping us to understand how we can improve our services and therefore make it simpler and faster for people to pay their taxes,” Mr McClay says.

ends

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