Revenue Minister Judith Collins has today welcomed the release of a tax officials’ paper, seeking feedback on options to reduce the cost to employers of administering PAYE information.
“We are aware that certain aspects of PAYE, such as correcting simple errors and sending that information to Inland Revenue, are still largely manual. This can impose excessive compliance costs on business.
“The Government is looking to reduce some of these costs as part of Inland Revenue’s Business Transformation programme, so business owners can concentrate on the job of growing their businesses,” Ms Collins says.
A tax bill currently before Parliament contains proposals for reducing employers’ PAYE compliance costs by integrating the PAYE process into normal business activity.
Further proposals released today would make the task of correcting PAYE information errors easier by allowing employers to use payroll software to make corrections to already filed returns, or in some circumstances, to make corrections in a subsequent return. However, the proposals would not mean that all employers would need to shift to digital services.
“It’s important that all businesses should benefit from simplified PAYE error correction processes. For that reason, employers who currently file through Inland Revenue’s website or on paper could continue to do so. Employers would be able to access their filed returns through myIR to correct their records, and paper-based error correction forms would continue to be available to employers for the foreseeable future,” Ms Collins says.
The paper, PAYE error correction and adjustment, is available at: www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz Submissions close on 15 September 2017.