Income tax Dates
You can claim a tax credit if you make a donation of $5 or more to an approved donee organisation and you’ve kept correct receipts to support your claim.
Individuals can claim 1/3rd of the value of eligible donations over $5, up to their taxable income.
A donation is a voluntary gift of money that provides no direct benefit to the giver.
Donee organisations include charities, religious organisations, schools, and kindergartens.
What you cannot claim
You cannot claim a tax credit for:
- childcare or housekeeper payments
- donations you've made through payroll giving at your workplace
- donations providing a direct benefit to you or your family
- donations made by forgiving debt or as part of a will.
Payroll giving
If you make donations through payroll giving at your workplace, you cannot claim donation tax credits at the end of the tax year. You’ve already received your tax credits during the year.
Who can claim
You can claim donation tax credits if all of the following situations apply to you.
- You're claiming as an individual and not on behalf of a trust, partnership or company.
- You earned taxable income during the tax year in which you're claiming a donation.
- You were a New Zealand tax resident at any time during the tax year, 1 April to 31 March.
How much you can claim
The amount of donation tax credits you can claim depends on your income and the value of your donations. The total you can claim in a year is the lower of:
- 1/3rd of your taxable income
- 1/3rd of your total donations.
Rather than rounding all tax credit refund amounts to be the nearest cent, we’ll stop at two decimal places.
Losses
If you have losses brought forward greater than your taxable income, you have no taxable income, so the credit cannot be claimed.
Sharing your claim with your partner
If your total donations were more than your total taxable income in a year, you can split your donations and allow your partner to claim the rest (up to their taxable income).
Sharing and transferring your donation tax credit
Correct receipts
To claim donation tax credits, you have 4 years to submit receipts from an approved organisation that clearly show all required information.
Check your donation receipt is correct
Processing your claim
We need to know your taxable income before we can process your claim.
If we work out your tax for you, we’ll see your taxable income in your income tax assessment.
But if you need to file an Individual income tax return – IR3, we can only process your claim after you file your return. We need your return to check your taxable income.
What happens at the end of the tax year
We’ll process your claim after 31 March
We cannot process your claim before the end of the tax year which it relates to.
The exceptions are if you are completing the claim on behalf of a deceased person, or going overseas permanently or for a significant period of time.
Processing times
Our current processing times are on our website. It may take longer to process your credit if we need more information from you, your income tax return is being processed, or your claim is chosen for further review.