Find out about: Tax rates and codes
Find out about tax codes
Personal income tax rates have changed from 1 April 2009. For a summary of the changes see the News and updates item.
Your tax code depends on how many sources of income you have, and whether you have a student loan. Here we give an overview; for more detail see the Tax code declaration (IR330).
Codes for your main source of income
For your main job or other source of income (eg ACC payments, income-tested benefits, student allowance, New Zealand Superannuation or war pensions), your tax code may be:
| If you ... | then your primary tax code is ... |
|---|---|
|
M. |
|
M SL. |
|
ME. |
|
ME SL. |
| work more than 20 hours per week in all jobs with an income less than $9,880 | ML. |
Codes for your second job or another source of income
For any income you receive from a second job or another source, your tax code will be S. Unless the following applies:
| If you have a second job ... | then your secondary tax code is ... |
|---|---|
| and your total income is over $48,000 | SH. |
| and your total income is over $70,000 | ST. |
If you have a student loan and your total income is over the threshold at which you must begin repaying your loan, SL is added to whichever of the above secondary codes applies to you. That is, your tax code will be S SL or SH SL or ST SL.
Other codes
Other codes that you may need to use include:
- WT for schedular payments
- CAE for the earnings of casual agricultural employees
- EDW for the earnings of election day workers
- NSW for Pacific Island workers employer under the Recognised Seasonal Employers scheme
- STC the special tax code/student loan special repayment rate. You may qualify for it, for example, when you are receiving an overseas pension that was not taxed in the source country or when using a secondary tax code would result in a tax rate too high for your circumstances.
Date published: 28 Apr 2009
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