KEY POINTS:
The IRD is an easy target. Nobody enjoys filling out a tax return and nearly everyone has a horror story about the bureaucratic nightmare the taxation process can become. The department does a difficult job and there will always be complaints.
But that is not the point. The
point of highlighting the IRD's problems now is that that department is under more stress than ever before. And that stress is taking its toll on the small business people who are most vulnerable to its various slings and arrows.
The IRD has to cope with the KiwiSaver superannuation scheme, the Working for Families subsidy and the student loan programme. It collects child support.
It is implementing a raft of tax policy changes - the upcoming personal tax cuts, the complex foreign investment funds tax, a research and development tax credit for businesses, new initiatives in the charitable sector, and the merging of dates for paying GST and provisional tax.
It was the anecdotes of frustrated taxpayers that prompted the Herald to tackle this story.
And it is the anecdotes we've heard in the five days since we highlighted the issue that make us confident we are not just shooting fish in a barrel.
As the emails continued to roll in yesterday there was one that summed up the sense of wearied resignation that many business people feel.
The writer acknowledges the extra workload faced by the IRD but notes how the Fair Dividend Rate regime has made estimation of provisional tax extremely difficult "especially given the sharemarket's heightened volatility".
Her solution is that she has opted to regularly over-pay.
She files overly conservative estimates and waits patiently for a tax refund, rather than risk becoming entangled in a bureaucratic web.
It's a luxury than some cannot afford and it illustrates the trepidation with which people now approach their annual return.
The taxpayer writes: "There needs to be an improvement to the way in which provisional tax overpayment/shortfalls are dealt with. The penalty regime needs an overhaul in the light of the introduction of the FDR regime."
There is no silver bullet. There is a wide range of specific issues to be worked through. No doubt the powers that be are doing just that.
Taxpayers need reassurance and acknowledgment that something needs to be done - and that something is being done.
* Liam Dann is the Herald's business editor.
