Two accountants have offered help to stricken taxpayers, following the Business Herald's coverage of a struggling Inland Revenue Department.
Stories flooded in last week about overloaded phones, erroneous computer-generated letters, unanswered queries, and mounting penalty tax as a result of the department's own delays.
The Revenue Minister said
IRD was still finding ways to cope with its much larger workload following the launch of policies such as KiwiSaver and the Working for Families scheme.
Kumeu chartered accountant Denise Maffey has offered her services free of charge to Shirley and Roger McNaught, an east Auckland couple battling penalty tax demands.
Shirley McNaught paid the provisional tax IRD said her husband's small business owed, and was then stunned to get another tax bill plus subsequent mounting penalties.
She has tried in vain to get hold of IRD to sort out the problem.
Maffey says a quarter of all new clients who walk in her door are in strife with Inland Revenue.
Maffey said while some IRD systems and policies were creating difficulties, she also believed there was a problem with people getting bad advice from tax agents.
She said tax agents were unregulated in this country, with no minimum qualifications required.
Meanwhile Cambridge accountants Shannon Wrigley have offered their expertise gratis to a British family trying to sort out their retired mother's tax status.
The woman was told by New Zealand House before leaving the UK last September that a new rule meant the first four years of her residency here would be tax-free, as long as she got the relevant paperwork done.
After filing the papers in December and several attempts to get in touch with IRD, the family are still waiting.
Fraser Smith of Shannon Wrigley, who is British, said it was a little-known rule that allowed immigrants a tax break on investment income back home.
After having a number of affected clients, the firm knew how to put the rule into effect, he said.
The emails have continued to come in from taxpayers affected by IRD delays and mistakes, such as a woman who is medically retired and receives payments from an insurance policy.
An IRD employee told her she would not have to pay provisional tax.
This was incorrect, and she has now received bills for $10,000 in tax plus $11,000 in 2009 provisional tax.
Inland Revenue confirms it has a record in its notes of her being given the wrong information.
