Finance: Do it yourself, it's easy

You see the ads on television all the time - people scoring a bit of extra money through a tax return.

But what they don't advertise so much is that these tax websites take quite a big cut of any money you are owed from the Inland Revenue Department, sometimes up to 20 per cent.

And what lots of people don't realise is how easy it is to take care of your own tax.

A personal tax summary is the "tax return" for the average person who earns a wage or salary. These are usually sent out in mid to late July by the IRD, but only if their system flags you as being required to receive one.

You might receive a personal tax summary automatically if you receive Working For Families, use a special tax code or if there has been a change of tax code or wrong tax code used for your earnings throughout the year.

If you aren't sent one but suspect you have paid too much tax and are due a refund, or paid too little tax throughout the year and feel guilty about not paying up, you can request a personal tax summary.

The personal tax summary is based on the information submitted to the IRD through PAYE schedules by your employer.

Once you have a summary it is easy to get your refund.

But if you request a summary and it shows you have tax to pay, there's no getting out of it.

To work out whether you are owed money and should request a summary:

Request a copy of your earnings from your employer.

Check what expenses you could offset against that income - loss of earnings insurance can be tax deductible, so can commissions on interest and dividends, and interest on borrowing to purchase shares that earn income. Interest paid to the IRD for late payments of tax is also deductible.

Jump on the IRD website, look under "work it out" under personal tax summary calculation, and enter the information, which will give you a result.

Refund? Request a summary.

Tax to pay? You don't have to request a PTS.

There are many websites that can do this for you but will take a percentage of your refund.

They take between 18 per cent and 20 per cent to a maximum fee of $400-$500.

But with the steps above you get to keep some extra woohoo to yourself.