Interest rates for people living overseas with unpaid student loans have increased, which is deterring some skilled Kiwis from returning home. Photo / 123rf
By Bella Craig of RNZ
A former IRD prosecutor is calling for changes to the student loan system so that Kiwis living overseas aren’t put off coming home because they’re worried about being arrested at the border.
In April, interest rates for overseas borrowers were lifted from 3.9% to 4.9% and the late payment interest rate for all borrowers to 8.9%.
Tax barrister Dave Ananth said this is putting people off returning to New Zealand at a time we should be encouraging skilled people to come home.
A pilot who’s been living in Australia for more than 10 years has racked up $170,000 in student loan debt, most of it being interest.
He struggled to find work in Aotearoa after completing his training in 2014, so he headed across the ditch, where he worked as a commercial pilot for six years.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and overseas travel all but ground to a halt, he was forced to take a low-paying job in a storage warehouse, which meant he struggled to meet his loan payments.
The pilot, who Checkpoint has agreed not to name, has since resumed flying for a regional carrier but worried about an uncertain job market and whether he would ever pay off his loan.
“This loan becomes an ongoing – it becomes a burden. There’s just no pathway forward as it currently stands.”
Checkpoint has also spoken to a woman who felt unable to come home to see her sick mother because she was scared she’d be arrested at the border.
When she moved to the United States 20 years ago, her student loan debt was around $15,000. That had ballooned to close to $70,000.
“When they told me how much penalty fees I had, and that was 10 years ago when I first found out about the penalty fees, that was more than my initial student loan and interest combined, I was just deflated.”
She received emails from IRD threatening legal action if she didn’t pay but she said she couldn’t afford it.
“You may think, ‘oh no, I’m just going to go to a different country and make all my money there’.
“But at some point, in time, when you’re older, you’re going to want to go back to your roots and see family and friends. I just screwed that up for myself.
“Just don’t get yourself in this situation like so many of us have where you can’t even go home and see family when they’re ill.
“I’ve been petrified something’s going to happen to my mum and she’s going to pass away and I’m not even going to be able to go there.”
After getting legal help from Ananth, IRD agreed to wipe the penalty fees so she now needs only to pay the original $15,000 loan and interest.
Ananth, who’s a tax barrister with the law firm Stace Hammond, agreed there should be penalties for failure to pay but said these should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
“A lot of them are telling me I’ve not heard from IRD for the last 10 years, but IRD’s perspective is it’s your obligation, you should contact.
“[It’s] that sort of ‘who should I contact? I’m away, you haven’t rung me, there were no emails’, that sort of thing. I think both sides need to come to the table.”
He also wanted better communication between IRD and the student debtor.
“There should be a bit of leeway to say, ‘Hey, okay you come in, but come back and talk to us and see whether a hardship application can be made, whether you can pay a few $100 for a start and then we can see how you go’.
“For a lot of them, because the loan has been taken 15, 20 years ago, they’ve got their head buried in the sand, they don’t want to deal with it. So, it creates a lot of anxiety, creates mental stress for a lot of people.”
In the year to March, there were about 80,000 overseas-based student loan borrowers with overdue repayments, an increase of 10% on the year before.
In total, they owed $2.3 billion.
Ananth said many people had found the grass wasn’t greener overseas.
“Everyone doesn’t go overseas straight away and then land in this cushy, $200,000, $300,000 job.”
He said people working in healthcare, technology and engineering should be prioritised to help plug gaps in the job market here.
IRD said between January 23 and February 7 this year it emailed 3502 borrowers with overdue repayments telling them they’re being monitored and that enforcement may be taken against them.
That could include being arrested at the New Zealand border.
But it said border arrests were a last resort and it would work with people before taking legal action. One borrower in default had been arrested in the past year.
Tax specialist Terry Baucher told Checkpoint he does not think IRD’s tactics are working because they were inflexible.
“They’re throwing a demand for, say $60,000, in one hit because it’s been allowed to accumulate for 10-15 years or more. People just can’t afford that. [They say] well, not our problem, but it is their problem, because they’ve allowed it to accumulate.”
He said in short, IRD could write off some penalty payments to encourage people to pay off the principal debt.
“You could do for every dollar you pay we’ll write off $2, something like that. So, then people feel that they’re making bites into it.”
There are 150 overseas borrowers who owe $15 million between them, he said.
“This is a bit of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. That’s a lot of money to have allowed to accumulate. For those people, it probably means they’re never going to set foot in New Zealand because they would be subject to this potential arrest.”
He said he’s been wondering about whether to write to the Auditor-General about people’s student loan debt that is over 15 years old.
“Is this amount of debt allowed to build up progressively over time due to Inland Revenue not keeping on top of it?” he said.
IRD said it could consider remission of late payment interest, but on a case-by-case basis.
It said borrowers often did not update their contact details when overseas, making it harder for the department to contact them.
The student loan base interest rate was increased by 1% in the 2024 Budget and was intended to partially cover the loss in value of the scheme due to recent high inflation.
IRD did not set the student loan interest or late payment interest rates.
“Student loan interest that has been correctly charged on overseas-based borrowers’ student loan accounts cannot be written off under current legislation, nor can Inland Revenue accept any agreement that voids a borrower’s liability to repay this.
“We always encourage student loan borrowers to contact us directly to discuss their situation. There is no need to engage the services of a lawyer.”
– RNZ