An employers' group is irate about what it claims are anomalies and complexities in the law governing KiwiSaver, causing red tape headaches for bosses.
"A fourth round of changes to the KiwiSaver law is needed as more errors keep coming to light," said Alasdair Thompson, chief executive of
the Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern).
"Employers will have to change their payroll systems yet again, and the re-work involved is causing a huge loss to the nation's productivity.
"Ever since Budget 2007, KiwiSaver has been steadily degenerating into a compliance nightmare with IRD struggling to fix the scheme's errors and anomalies."
Thompson said there is widespread confusion over matters such as compliance dates, automatic staff enrolments and income tax credits.
Thompson also said IRD has been failing to allocate funds into KiwiSaver accounts in reasonable time.
"In some cases they have not sent money to the right fund manager.
"Workplace morale is being affected as staff ask: 'what's happened to my money?'"
Thompson claims 5 to 10 per cent of employers are reporting their employees are blaming them for IRD's implementation bungles, quoting a poll of some 2000 employers.
"We don't wholly blame IRD who are trying to make a fist of implementing bad legislation", he said.
"Michael Cullen is the only person KiwiSavers and employers can hold accountable. He's paying the price for rushing KiwiSaver to make it his star turn in the politics of surprise and awe in an election year without giving IRD sufficient time to make the necessary law changes.
"The loss of productivity from all the changes that employers have had to see to, is huge."
