Inland Revenue to close to public for a week for IT upgrade

Friday, 6 March 2020

Inland Revenue is preparing for another wave of change (first published February 2020).

Inland Revenue will close its call centres, online services and front offices for a week over Easter as it implements the fourth phase of its $1.8 billion Business Transformation project.

Deputy commissioner of transformation Greg James said the shut-down will be between 3pm on Thursday, April 9, until the following Thursday.

The department has promised recent graduates and people newly claiming Working for Families payments will be among those who see improvements when it comes back online.

From April, people who newly register for Working for Families payments will receive the tax deductions in their pay-packets from the time they qualify for the benefit, rather than having to wait until the end of the tax year for money to first show through, James said last month.

Inland Revenue be shut to the public for a week over Easter as it changes systems.

* IRD refunds more than $80 million of tax in the first week of its new automated assessment system

* Another 'small wrinkle' surfaces after minister labels huge IRD upgrade a success**

People with student loans will also be able to view up-to-date balances online, along with information on what, if any, interest may be accruing.

Borrowers who have moved overseas will be able to pay down their debts using a new fee-free facility Inland Revenue has arranged with Citibank that will provide a locked-in exchange rate.

The new system will allow Inland Revenue to send text messages to borrowers to tell them, for example, if they were about to start incurring interest charges or were falling behind on payments.

Inland Revenue aims to cut the time it takes to release employers' KiwiSaver contributions to investors' accounts from about 17 to 20 days, to under 10 days, from April.

Another significant change is that Inland Revenue will begin receiving monthly statements from organisations that pay dividends to taxpayers, instead of only receiving dividend information at the end of the tax year.

That should mean smaller end-of-year tax bills or refunds for people with investment income.