I left New Zealand part way through the last tax year. This means that I ended up paying to much tax for the year. Becuase I stopped being a NZ tax resident, I had to file an IR3 with the IRD so they can work out my refund.

I submitted my IR3 return to the IRD on the 27th of March via the website. At the time they said processing can take up to 10 weeks. I figured that was a long time, but was likely a statement more to cover themselves in case they were excessively busy or something.

6 weeks later, I ring them to see how it's progressing. They tell me it should be processed around 5th August  (10 weeks from submission).

I'm totally perplexed it can take this long. 10 weeks is 70 days - and it was filed online. In fact, I hardly had to fill anything out because it pre populated most of the details.

Here in Oz, every single tax payer has to file a return, every year. Because it's my first year here, I cannot use their online system and I had to send in a paper return. Even sending it in manually on paper, the Australian Tax Office SLA on my refund is 46 days - that's more than 3 weeks LESS than IRD's timeframe for an electronically filed return.

If I could have filed my AU return electronically, the ATO state that most refunds are processed in 14 days or less from submission (No more than 30 for complex returns).

Considering most NZ tax payers don't even have to file a return at all, I am perplexed it can take the IRD so much longer to processes something that a) should be pretty straightforward and b) they already know most of the info for.