Inland Revenue unable to handle calls generated by mail-outs

Monday, 21 October 2019

Inland Revenue says a 'combination of factors' has contributed to a deluge of calls.

The logjam at Inland Revenue's contact centres appears to be worsening, with the department struggling to cope with the calls generated by some of its own mail-outs.

The department said last Tuesday that it was unable to accept calls from people who had queries about income tax, who wanted to update their details, or who needed an IRD number, due to 'high demand'.

On Monday afternoon it had closed off its call centres to people with a wider range of queries, including callers who were seeking help employing people, or who had queries about KiwiSaver or Working for Families.

That meant people with queries on those topics could not even be placed in a queue and put on hold.

* Inland Revenue contact centres experience 'significant overloading' with calls at near-record levels

The range of matters that Inland Revenue will deal over the phone has fallen from last week.

* More than 45 per cent of calls to Inland Revenue disconnected in June**

An Inland Revenue spokeswoman blamed a combination of factors for driving a high volume of calls to its contact centres.

'As part of our improvement work, we've sent tax code 'early intervention letters' to more than 200,000 people to make sure they're on the right tax code.

Letters advising people to change their tax rate on KiwiSaver investments are part of the reason Inland Revenue is snowed under.

'It's the first time we've issued these this tax year. If people check what code they should be on and change if necessary, it reduces the risk of customers receiving a large tax bill at the end of the tax year,' she said.

The department had also sent more than 930,000 letters to people who had selected the wrong Prescribed Investor Rate (PIR) tax rate on their KiwiSaver and other investments, she said.

'The mailout started in May and will continue through to November. We are receiving calls about this even though the PIR rate needs to be changed with their funds manager, not with IRD.

'Changing to the correct rate reduces the risk of a tax bill at the end of the tax year' she said.

The department had sent another 75,000 letters to Working for Families recipients, asking them to update their income estimates to make sure IRD had the right information to work out their correct tax credit payments and to ensure they didn't end up with a debt at the end of the year, she said.

'We also have a marketing campaign encouraging customers who received an automatic refund last year, and did not have a MyIR account, to sign up to MyIR.

'And we know some banks are now sending communications to customers with investments asking them to get their IRD numbers, if they don't already know them.'

Inland Revenue was two-thirds of the way through its Business Transformation project, which is designed to simplify the tax system, she said.

'Everything we are doing now is aimed at setting our customers up for success for next year.'