KiwiSaver money transfer delayed more than 6 months

A WOMAN has been left waiting more than six months for her KiwiSaver employer contribution to pass through to her provider after a glitch in Inland Revenue’s systems.

Andrea, who did not want her last name used, said she noticed her March employer contribution, which should have been just under $300, did not appear in her myIR KiwiSaver account in April.

‘‘It always shows the two amounts each month, the employer and the other one. And I just noticed there was only one line for the March one.

‘‘I just thought I will give it a little bit and it will appear and it never did.’’

Then the April KiwiSaver employer contribution came through but still not the March one, prompting her to send a message to Inland Revenue using its internal messaging system.

It responded with a message saying: ‘‘this is a system error at our end due to conversion of accounts from our old computer system to our new computer system.

‘‘I can see that your employer has declared the employer contribution and it has been allocated to your account but due to the issue it has not yet passed to the scheme provider.’’

The IRD switched all KiwiSaver information on to a new system in April.

The customer services officer apologised for the delay and said the issue was being worked on.

But two months later when Andrea queried the issue again it had still not been fixed.

This time the Inland Revenue representative responded by saying the issue was still being worked on but no timeframe for its resolution could be provided.

Andrea received another apology and was told she would be notified when the issue was fixed.

But six months later the money was still not with her KiwiSaver provider Fisher Funds.

‘‘It seems like they should have found it by now.’’

She said all her other KiwiSaver contributions had come through.

‘‘It is just that one entry.’’

The Herald sent a query to Inland Revenue about Andrea’s situation and within hours it had been sorted.

An Inland Revenue spokeswoman said the issue had been resolved but for privacy reasons did not give any details.

Andrea was also worried it might be a widespread issue given Inland Revenue switched all KiwiSaver accounts to a new system in April.

‘‘If it is happening to everyone who is an employee . . . that ends up being quite a lot of money combined.’’

The IRD spokeswoman said it could not say how many others might be affected without the query going through an Official Information Act request due to the amount of time and resources it would take to find that out.

KiwiSaver members can check their contributions to KiwiSaver by signing up for the myIR service.

It can take up to three months for the money to be transferred from IRD to the KiwiSaver provider. — The New Zealand Herald