Why is the IRD so slow?!

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Why is the IRD so slow?!

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#652800 9-Jul-2012 10:47

Mine comes through really fast, but my accountant does everything for me online, and it's business ish - self employed rather than personal.

Byrned

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#652804 9-Jul-2012 10:56

Asked my accountant and they said that there is a massive backlog at IRD at the moment due to the tax changes that came into effect last year for LAQC's (now LTC's) and as such things are taking longer.

And for whoever it said that their are only a few million peps in NZ, perhaps you should consider the masses of small businesses around. Just between my wife and I we have 5 IRD numbers and associated tax returns we do each year (2 personal, 1 trust, and 2 business if anyones counting).

ajobbins

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#652860 9-Jul-2012 12:00

Byrned: And for whoever it said that their are only a few million peps in NZ, perhaps you should consider the masses of small businesses around. Just between my wife and I we have 5 IRD numbers and associated tax returns we do each year (2 personal, 1 trust, and 2 business if anyones counting).

According to Stats NZ, there were 470,050 enterprises in New Zealand as at February 2011 (The latest data available).

Their definition of an enterprise is: a business operating in New Zealand. It can be a company, partnership, trust, estate, incorporated society, producer board, local or central government organisation, voluntary organisation, or self-employed individual.

As sold traders have to do a single return for their personal and sole trader affairs (As they are a single legal entity) there would be some crossover there. As far as trust go, even if we assume there is as many trusts as there are 'enterprises' (which I doubt), we are still talking under a million total, inlcuding all the sole trader/partnership crossover.

I also assume that IR3's a processed by a seperate team to the IR10's and other non-personal income tax type returns.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/businesses/business_characteristics/BusinessDemographyStatistics_HOTPFeb11/Commentary.aspx

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ajobbins

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#652867 9-Jul-2012 12:06

Jas777: Maybe they do NZ resident taxpayers claims quicker than non Nz resident taxpayers claims. There could be a different department that deal with the claims as the tax laws are more complicated.

Perhaps, but for my return I was an NZ resident taxpayer - it was just a partial year return.

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ajobbins

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#653648 10-Jul-2012 16:55

Tried to call the IRD today as when I log into my account, it shows last years PTS as unconfirmed, even though I can see the refund in my back account in July last year. (IR3 still showing as pending).

When I called earlier, the wait time was "between 24 and 48 minutes" and it offered me a call back. Over an hour later I got the call back, but I was in a meeting so I missed it. Their system tried 3 times, 7 minutes apart and I missed them all.

When I call back now, the wait time is between 42 and 65 minutes, but there is no offer of a call back - it just tells me to hold.

When I called a couple of weeks ago to check status of IR3, the ONLY option I got was a callback - no option to wait in a queue. Luckly i have a VoIP line with a NZ number, as even on their 'International callers' line, the only option was to be called back on a NZ landline number (No intl and no mobiles), or disconnect.

WTF is their system doing? The experince when calling them is different every time I call :S

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minimoke

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#653894 11-Jul-2012 10:20

ajobbins: Tried to call the IRD today as when I log into my account, it shows last years PTS as unconfirmed, even though I can see the refund in my back account in July last year. (IR3 still showing as pending).

When I called earlier, the wait time was "between 24 and 48 minutes" and it offered me a call back. Over an hour later I got the call back, but I was in a meeting so I missed it. Their system tried 3 times, 7 minutes apart and I missed them all.

When I call back now, the wait time is between 42 and 65 minutes, but there is no offer of a call back - it just tells me to hold.

When I called a couple of weeks ago to check status of IR3, the ONLY option I got was a callback - no option to wait in a queue. Luckly i have a VoIP line with a NZ number, as even on their 'International callers' line, the only option was to be called back on a NZ landline number (No intl and no mobiles), or disconnect.

WTF is their system doing? The experince when calling them is different every time I call :S

Your expereince is actually the same. You call and your call isn't answered by a real person. You keep calling and you get the same intiial repsonse. If you call again why would you expect a different response and a different experince. Clearly IRD don't have the staff to answer phones - but that makes them no differnt from so many other organisaiotns now days. Have you tried email - that has also worked well for me in the past

ajobbins

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#653951 11-Jul-2012 12:23

minimoke: Your expereince is actually the same. You call and your call isn't answered by a real person. You keep calling and you get the same intiial repsonse. If you call again why would you expect a different response and a different experince. Clearly IRD don't have the staff to answer phones - but that makes them no differnt from so many other organisaiotns now days. Have you tried email - that has also worked well for me in the past

I sent them a secure mail earlier this year on another matter. Upon submission it said they will get back to me within 15 days. 35 days later I got a reply.

When calling yesterday, I don't know why some of the time it gives me the call back option, but other times not. A couple of weeks ago, call back was the only option.

Finally got through about 6pm NZ time last night. I called, and got their 'sorry we are overloaded, call back later message' several times, but tried again a few minutes later and was talking to a real person in less than 10 minutes. Not sure how it goes from over an hours wait, to overloaded, to talking to someone within 10 minutes all within the same hour.

On the other hand, I can already see that the Australian Tax Office is progressing my return I send to them by POST last week. My Australian return will likely be back before my IR3 that was filed 5 weeks prior to the Australian return, and the AU return is more complicated than my NZ one (also a part year return, but also expense deductions, medical insurance implications, employer shares etc)

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#653956 11-Jul-2012 12:41

ajobbins:
minimoke: Your expereince is actually the same. You call and your call isn't answered by a real person. You keep calling and you get the same intiial repsonse. If you call again why would you expect a different response and a different experince. Clearly IRD don't have the staff to answer phones - but that makes them no differnt from so many other organisaiotns now days. Have you tried email - that has also worked well for me in the past

I sent them a secure mail earlier this year on another matter. Upon submission it said they will get back to me within 15 days. 35 days later I got a reply.

When calling yesterday, I don't know why some of the time it gives me the call back option, but other times not. A couple of weeks ago, call back was the only option.

Finally got through about 6pm NZ time last night. I called, and got their 'sorry we are overloaded, call back later message' several times, but tried again a few minutes later and was talking to a real person in less than 10 minutes. Not sure how it goes from over an hours wait, to overloaded, to talking to someone within 10 minutes all within the same hour.

On the other hand, I can already see that the Australian Tax Office is progressing my return I send to them by POST last week. My Australian return will likely be back before my IR3 that was filed 5 weeks prior to the Australian return, and the AU return is more complicated than my NZ one (also a part year return, but also expense deductions, medical insurance implications, employer shares etc)

Their phone system is shocking especially at busy times. I had a problem with my IR3 return, their system crashed just as I had completed it and I didn't know if it had gone through or not.

Called up at 9am the next morning and hold time was 8 hours, so I arranged a callback. But because the wait time was so long the next callback wasn't for 2 days! This would have been ok if they would call back mobiles but they will only callback landlines and I had no idea if I would be by my phone in 2 days time. Spent about 6 hours over the next 2 days trying to get hold of them but gave up in the end and sent a secure mail, they replied in 14 days.

floydbloke

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#654345 12-Jul-2012 09:54

jbard:
Their phone system is shocking especially at busy times. I had a problem with my IR3 return, their system crashed just as I had completed it and I didn't know if it had gone through or not.

Called up at 9am the next morning and hold time was 8 hours, so I arranged a callback. But because the wait time was so long the next callback wasn't for 2 days! This would have been ok if they would call back mobiles but they will only callback landlines and I had no idea if I would be by my phone in 2 days time. Spent about 6 hours over the next 2 days trying to get hold of them but gave up in the end and sent a secure mail, they replied in 14 days.

Sounds like the phone system is working just fine, more like a staffing issue.

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ajobbins

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#654357 12-Jul-2012 10:05

Looks like IRD processed my IR3 yesterday! Woohoo!

Does anyone know if they just process the refund to my bank account, or do I have to confirm it with them first? It's been a few years since I've had to do one.

Curiously, they seem to have assessed I underpaid my student loan repayments last year.

Not sure how that is possible, as I only worked a part year, the repayments I did make work out to be a higher percentage of my total income for the year (because of the $18k or so threshold). If I work it out myself (10% of gross income above the threshold) it shows I overpaid.

Might have to follow that one up when the assessment arrives.

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ajobbins

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#654358 12-Jul-2012 10:06

floydbloke: Sounds like the phone system is working just fine, more like a staffing issue.

Staffing issue is one part of it, but I am confused as to why the IVR sometimes offers a call back, and other times doesn't, with no obvious pattern.

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nzkiwiman

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#654558 12-Jul-2012 14:19

Killing some time at work on Friday I checked the online IRD and was surprised to see that I was owed a refund; the next day I received the piece of paper in the mail saying the same thing along with instructions on how to confirm and claim

On Sunday night I followed the instructions and confirmed.
They said 4 days later I should get the $. It was in my account today (Thursday)

Shock

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#654862 13-Jul-2012 06:33

This may explain some of the delays Adam http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/7270044/More-than-70-000-calls-to-IRD-unanswered-union

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timmmay

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#655052 13-Jul-2012 13:43

Yep, hugely understaffed.

ajobbins

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#655131 13-Jul-2012 15:21

Thankfully my IR3 is all done now.

Given the issues they have with caller volume, it would be really good if they could get some consistancy around the way their IVR works.

Sometimes it offers the callback option, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes a call back is the only option, which is largely useless for most people outside NZ as you can only get a call back to a NZ landline number

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