By FRANCESCA MOLD
A $550,000 payout to an Auckland couple has ended a 14-year dispute with Inland Revenue but critics say the officials responsible have escaped blame too easily.
Revenue Minister Michael Cullen yesterday labelled the payout a full and final settlement of the concerns raised by Jan and Murray Willis over a battle with the IRD that cost them their business.
The compensation deal covers just over half the amount the couple estimated they lost as a result of the dispute, which started in the mid-1980s.
The Willises, who live on Great Barrier Island, did not return calls from the Herald yesterday.
But Act MP Rodney Hide, who was instrumental in getting the case heard by Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee, said he had spoken to the couple, who were pleased with the apology and payout.
Mr and Mrs Willis ran an engineering business employing up to 400 people when their dispute started with IRD over the ACC categorisation of their workers.
They borrowed and sold assets to pay $100,000 to the department.
In 1993, the IRD sent a letter threatening to wind up the company, based on the couple's failure to appeal against a letter sent to them in 1990.
However, the 1990 letter gave no indication of any right of appeal.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters laid a complaint with police after discovering at a parliamentary finance and expenditure select committee that the letter had been falsified.
The police investigation found the letter was illegally tampered with but could not prove who did it.
The IRD official involved in the case has since died.
Mr Peters said yesterday that he believed the IRD had committed perjury and forgery and not been held to account.
"It could not have been just one person ... That's not the way the department operates, so more people were in on it."
Mr Peters said there should have been a full-scale inquiry into the case.
He described the payout as inadequate and said it did not exonerate National and Labour ministers who had failed to impose standards of accountability on the IRD and other departments.
"They've slapped themselves on the back and told themselves they have all done a good job, when in fact they have done nothing to stop this happening in the future."
Act's Rodney Hide said the settlement was not the end of the fight.
"The Willis settlement is good news for taxpayers. We now have tangible recognition that the IRD has run out of control with some taxpayers. The challenge is to put it right."
Mr Hide said other taxpayers who had been badly treated needed a forum in which they could have their concerns heard.
Dr Cullen said the Willis compensation deal did not set a precedent and other cases between taxpayers and the IRD would be considered on their merits.
IRD payout inadequate: Peters
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