$23,000 tax bill sent to 8-year-old

An Auckland dad was left gobsmacked after receiving a tax bill for $23,000 addressed to his 8-yearold son.

The Inland Revenue Department has since confirmed the letter was sent by mistake.

Papakura resident George Hawkins said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he opened the letter on Thursday.

His son Nikolai’s name was correct, including his middle name, and was matched with the right IRD number, but Hawkins couldn’t fathom how a Year 4 schoolboy could have incurred such an enormous tax bill.

All of Hawkins’ children have IRD numbers so the family can receive Working for Families tax credits.

“He’s not out there working,” he said. “I was really surprised. I thought ‘do I have to pay them?’.”

Hawkins’ confusion turned to frustration and anger after trying repeatedly to get in touch with the IRD without success.

After questions from the Weekend Herald, an IRD staffer got in touch with Hawkins and confirmed the message had been sent to his son in error.

Hawkins said the IRD staffer told him they suspected someone put Nikolai’s IRD number in by mistake when filling their tax form out online.

An IRD spokesman confirmed this was possible, as information entered manually by a customer had to be cross-referenced and verified with existing customer information by an IRD staffer. “It is during this verification process when some errors can regrettably occur from time to time,” the spokesman said.

Customers could avoid this possibility by using their my IR account.