Inland Revenue hits 'significant milestone' as refunds paid to 1.3 million people

Tuesday, 30 July 2019

Inland Revenue has paid $572 million into taxpayers' bank accounts in automatic refunds over past two months.

This is the first year that Inland Revenue has returned overpaid tax without being asked for a refund, and Revenue Minister Stuart Nash said the completion of this year's tax refund season was 'a significant milestone'.

Anyone with up-to-date contact information who was due a refund should now have received a communication from Inland Revenue. 

'Inland Revenue has sent out all the automatic assessments or requests for information it can but has about 200,000 customers who we don't have up-to-date contact details for,' spokeswoman Gay Cavill said.

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'We have done their tax assessment but haven't been able to notify those people yet. Some customers have been asked for more information and generally have 45 days to respond.

'Customers who still haven't received their assessment should contact Inland Revenue.'

Refunds were typically paid within 48 hours of a taxpayer receiving their assessment, unless Inland Revenue didn't have the correct bank account information for them, she said.

Nash said Inland Revenue's ability to run 'auto calculations' helped ensure everyone paid their fair share of tax.

'Gone are the days of effectively having to apply for a refund. If you pay too much tax throughout the year, we can now refund that money straight to your bank account.'

Inland Revenue said it had completed assessments for 2,579,172 people since the end of May, with 1,330,484 of those assessments resulting in refunds averaging $430 and 270,952 resulting in bills averaging $353.

Other changes flowing from Inland Revenue's $1.6 billion Business Transformation project are expected to result in tax being more accurately collected through the year, resulting in fewer and smaller refunds and bills from next year.