Inland Revenue sends man letter seeking one cent in GST owing

Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Mark Cory-Wright was shocked to see that Inland Revenue had sent him a letter saying he owed one cent in Goods and Services Tax.

A man was absolutely dumbfounded to receive one cent bill from Inland Revenue recently.

'You're kidding me, you're absolutely kidding me,' was Mark Cory-Wright's response when he opened a letter.

Cory-Wright has said he won't be paying the bill.

The man from Tairua said the letter had been sitting at his home on the Coromandel Peninsula for about a week before he opened it to find that IRD were asking him for one cent in Goods and Services Tax.

'[The letters] are computer generated and no one checks it, obviously.'

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The account owing tax was his family trust, and Cory-Wright had not been expecting to receive a letter from IRD because 'I thought it was all sorted, but obviously I underpaid by one cent'.

'I'm not going to pay it - it's a bit pointless, isn't it?'

He said if he was to pay, he'd have to do it by internet banking as that was the only way he could only pay one cent.

A friend had told him to send IRD a 10 cent coin and ask for nine cents change, he said.

However, the cost of postage and an envelope increased was so much more than what was owed he turned down the idea.

Cory-Wright was not going to approach IRD about the letter.

'Surely they just carry it forward to next year - interest on one cent isn't much.

'If they really want it back, just hook it onto next year's bill.'

He suggested that IRD write-off owed amounts when they are so low.

He compared it to paying duty when importing products into New Zealand.

'Well, it's like customs - whenever you buy something from overseas, if it's above $70 you have to pay duty on it, if its below there's no duty.'

IRD spokesperson Pete van Schaardenburg apologised to the customer concerned.

'In this case, this outstanding balance appears to be the consequence of a rounding error,' he said.

'This statement has, however, been sent in error and follows a recent change to our automated customer statements.

'We will be putting a corrective solution in place this week to ensure this doesn't happen in future'.