Smoothing the tax man - changes explained

Tax Management NZ CEO Chris Cunniffe was once a client of the company in his corporate career.

A roadshow on provisional tax changes and the role of a tax intermediary - to match tax payments with company cash flow - is coming to Hawke's Bay.

Tax Management NZ chief executive Chris Cunniffe will speak in Napier on July 20 at the Napier Conference Centre.

He is the former head of tax at BNZ and Air New Zealand and a member of the Chartered Accountants ANZ's tax advisory group to the Government.

Tax Management NZ holds on trust more than $5 billion of provisional tax payments in its IRD account.

"Outside of IRD, we see more tax than anyone else and are well positioned to comment on the new rules," he said.

The old rules unfairly assumed a business could accurately predict its income tax liability before it had earned a dollar and could pay in three equal instalments, he said.

Businesses will no longer need to continuously estimate their liability throughout the year under the new rules. If they pay provisional tax based on a 5 per cent uplift of last year's liability, they will not be liable for IRD interest payment intermediary.