By BERNARD ORSMAN
Believe it Vector customers, your cheque will be in the mail - even if it is slightly less than the $570 payout initially expected.
The Auckland Energy Consumer Trust decided last night to widen the pool of consumers who qualify for the $152 million after-tax dividend.
More than 345,000 consumers are now eligible for the payment, which has been set at $520.
As expected, the five trustees voted to distribute the dividend evenly among households and businesses in Auckland and Manukau cities and most of Papakura.
But instead of paying just 263,000 present household and business consumers, the trust will allow 82,000 former customers to share in the cake. It is holding back $16 million of the $152 million for these consumers.
They were consumers when dividends from 1998, 1999 and 2000 banked-up during legal action by Auckland, Manukau and Papakura Councils. This group has either moved out of the Vector area, changed power line company or died since the eligibility date for the 1998 dividend.
Trust chairwoman Pauline Winter said it was only fair that former consumers, some of whom would have paid power bills for years, got a share and were not penalised for the protracted court action.
The trust has decided the 263,000 existing customers will receive the full dividend. Cheques will be posted on March 26 and should be in letterboxes by March 31. A cutoff date has been set for existing customers to qualify but the trust will not say what it is so people can't open or change accounts for personal gain.
People will receive a dividend for each account they have. In multi-tenanted flats, the dividend will be sent to whichever name or names are on the power bill.
The trust will run an advertising campaign and give former Vector customers six months to apply for a payout which will be based on how long they were Vector customers when dividends were stalled.
Former customers must prove they were customers at August 30, 1999 or May 31, 2000 (the dates of eligibility for the 1998 and 1999 dividends) by providing a copy of their power account for those dates or produce details that can be checked against Vector's records. They will also have to show ID.
The trust investigated making a direct payout to former consumers but ran into a number of problems and decided it was too risky.
A swift payout was made possible yesterday when Inland Revenue announced that it would not intercept the cheques of 50,000 people who owe tax money.
That action would have delayed the payout by another month.
The Herald revealed yesterday that IRD officials had met Vector and the trust, asking for customer information so it could stop those debtors receiving some or all of their payout.
Under section 17 of the Inland Revenue Act, the IRD can demand and act on the information as it did in May 1999 when it intercepted 600 cheques from the proceeds of the sale of Westpower sent to West Coasters who owed tax.
Inland Revenue spokesman David Balham refused to say why its operations general manager Liz Sinclair had decided not to pursue Auckland tax defaulters. He denied the decision was linked to the Herald story.
A spokeswoman for Inland Revenue Minister Michael Cullen said no ministerial approval was needed for a swoop and there was no interference in the IRD decision.
In a written statement, Liz Sinclair said IRD was now "encouraging Aucklanders who owe tax to settle their debts using dividends from a power company payout."
* People can contact the Vector payout hotline on 0800 4PAYOUT (0800 472 9688) or visit the trust website.
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