We work with and share appropriate data and information with other government agencies and external partners to deliver better services and outcomes for New Zealanders.
Partnerships are integral to how we operate. IR manages and runs the tax and social policy system by working with many other stakeholders, including other public sector agencies, tax agents, employers, KiwiSaver providers, financial institutions, and community groups.
You can read more about the work we do with others, including how we worked closely with other agencies to implement FamilyBoost, work with our OECD partners to ensure we play our part on global initiatives, and co-designed solutions to better support digital service providers on the pages below:
Outcomes of the transformation programme
Being an active steward of the tax and social policy system
We continue to work with government departments on cross-agency initiatives and administering products and services. Read about our data and information-sharing agreements, international agreements and memoranda of understanding with other agencies at
The following case study provides an example of the work we do with others.
Results from working with others to deliver services and improve compliance
Trend indicator: target achieved
Case study 1 - Outcomes from data and information-sharing
IR fosters interagency collaboration through data and information sharing with various government and non-government agencies. Our aim is to enhance service delivery, improve compliance and streamline administrative processes. By leveraging shared data and intelligence, IR and other agencies can collectively identify and address issues quickly and provide more integrated and effective support to New Zealanders.
While ensuring efficient, effective and secure methods of data and information exchange within legislative frameworks, we continue to digitise processes to improve accuracy, streamline operations and reduce manual effort.
Improving the accuracy of entitlements and tax assessments
Integrating data sources from financial institutions, employers, the Ministry of Social Development Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora (MSD) and Accident Compensation Corporation, enables us to provide timely and accurate Working for Families Tax Credit (WfFTC) entitlements and individual tax assessments, while requiring minimal effort from customers. This is a fully digitised process that reduces the possibility of fraud.
Recent policy changes such as FamilyBoost and Fees Free highlight the success of interagency collaboration, with effective coordination required across multiple agencies. This is also shown through the sharing of data and information with New Zealand Police Ngā Pirihimana o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Customs Service Te Mana Ārai o Aotearoa and the Serious Fraud Office Te Tari Hara Tāware to help prevent, detect, investigate and provide evidence of serious crime. There is more detail on these shares here:
Contributing to evidence-based policy and research
Partnerships with agencies such as Statistics New Zealand Tatauranga Aotearoa (Stats NZ) and MSD enable a comprehensive view of taxpayer behaviours and socioeconomic trends. This facilitates targeted policy interventions and support services, ultimately improving outcomes for New Zealanders.
IR is a major contributor to 2 of Stats NZ’s large research databases: the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and Longitudinal Business Database. Numerous government agencies, universities, non-profit organisations and private companies can apply to Stats NZ to use the databases to conduct research projects on complex issues affecting New Zealanders.
- IR’s data contributes to around two-thirds of research projects, with around a quarter of these being public sector projects.
- IR’s data has recently played a crucial role in developing an understanding of business performance benchmarks. Businesses can use this data for planning and goal setting or to assess their performance against similar entities.
Case study 2 - Collecting student loan and child support payments from people overseas
Student loans
To ensure that all student loan borrowers meet their repayment obligations, regardless of where they live, we have data-sharing agreements with other public sector agencies and third parties, both here and overseas.
As at 30 June 2024, 93% of outstanding repayments were for overseas borrowers, most of whom are based in Australia. We receive customer contact details from the Department of Internal Affairs Te Tari Taiwhenua and the Australian Tax Office to help locate customers with invalid contact details.
Arrival data from the New Zealand Customs Service helps us to contact people who are not meeting their repayment obligations when they arrive in New Zealand. Last year we received cases from the service for 13,400 customers. As a result of these cases, and consequent follow-up actions, 1,700 are no longer in default with 500 applying for hardship.
We use third-party collection agencies in Australia and the UK to contact people and discuss their overdue repayments initially and move to enforcement for people who continually refuse to meet their obligations. At 30 June 2024, we had 12 judgments for debt lodged with the Australian courts.
This year, we successfully contacted 11,000 individuals who repaid a total of $9 million. These results have been lower post COVID-19 and we will be increasing our focus in this area, bolstered by additional funding received in Budget 2024.
During COVID-19, we reduced enforcement work with overseas-based borrowers. We have increased our focus on them this year and received additional funding as part of Budget 2024 to focus more on ensuring they meet their repayment obligations. We will do this by using the data we collect from existing information-sharing arrangements to locate customers. We will continue to use third parties in Australia and the UK to contact borrowers and take enforcement action on our behalf if they do not meet their obligations. We will also focus on those returning to New Zealand as we have more ability to engage with them directly.
Child support
IR has a reciprocal child support agreement with Australia which enables the exchange of personal and income data and information, and the enforcement of collection of payments. While overseas-based student loan borrowers have to make their own payments, for child support customers based in Australia, the money is collected by Services Australia, making it easier for those customers to meet obligations.
As at 30 June 2024, there were 6,486 cases registered in Australia. During the 2024 financial year we received $34 million from Services Australia.
Business customers gain value from easy and seamless dealings with government
Trend indicator: declined
The Better for Business programme run by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Hīkina Whakatutuki (MBIE) researches customer experiences with several government agencies, including IR. MBIE’s Customer Experience Index (CXI) uses 10 dimensions to generate insights into how government agencies can improve the experience that businesses have when they deal with them.
We scored 62 on the Customer Experience Index
| Year | Customer Experience Index rating |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 58 |
| 2021 | 63 |
| 2022 | 62 |
| 2023 | 66 |
| 2024 | 62 |
Over the past year, our CXI score decreased by 4 points to 62, slightly above 2020 pre-COVID-19 levels. Businesses say it is taking more time to deal with us and taking longer to resolve their queries. Filing returns and making payments for GST, provisional tax, and income tax take the most time. However, the number of businesses that say they receive a valuable service from us and would recommend IR increased slightly over the year. You can read more about what we are doing to reduce effort for businesses here.