ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide today said that he fully sympathised with the PSA's frustration with the Commissioner of Inland Revenue's rejection of the Parliamentary Select Committee's Inquiry Report that there is a need for a fundamental change in IRD's culture starting with the top management.

Inland Revenue staff - members of the PSA - today walked off the job at Auckland's Manukau office in response to the parliamentary inquiry into IRD and especially comments made by the tax commissioner, Graham Holland, since the report's release.

Rodney Hide said the Select Committee Inquiry found that IRD officers are as much a victim of IRD's aggressive culture as are taxpayers.

"It's astonishing to me that Sir William Birch and Graham Holland resolutely refuse to listen to taxpayers, to Parliament and to IRD's own staff.

"There is a culture of "punishment and fear" inside the IRD and the PSA are quite right to be angered by the loss of the civil service culture that Parliament's Select Committee pointed out."

"The only way to effect the cultural change necessary is for Graham Holland to resign," said Rodney Hide.

ENDS

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