IRD to spend millions on advertising

The Inland Revenue Department will spend almost $4 million on an advertising campaign to prepare people for big changes to the tax system that kick in next year.

Spokesman Rowan McArthur said the $3,880,000 campaign would include print, online and radio advertising, and Inland Revenue would be producing graphics and videos.

The tax changes would be the biggest in a generation, Inland Revenue commissioner Naomi Ferguson said.

Assuming Parliament passes all the necessary legislation, the April 2019 tax year would see a ‘‘fundamental shift in the way New Zealanders interact with the revenue system’’, she said, with almost every household and business affected.

The changes, which will be brought about by the second stage of the tax department’s $1.5 billion to $1.8b Business Transformation programme, will see automated tax assessments issued to about 1.7 million taxpayers, who should get tax refunds paid straight to their bank accounts.

‘‘About 720,000 of those people will not have had any recent contact with IRD, some not for 20 years or more, so it may come as a surprise,’’ Ferguson said.

Of those 720,000, about 530,000 would be beneficiaries and people who earned less than the minimum wage and who had never applied for a tax refund before, she said.

Ferguson said more than 330,000 Working for Families recipients would benefit from new processes, with Inland Revenue getting their wage and salary information immediately, allowing it to adjust payments so they were ‘‘always getting the right amount’’.