Hi Team,

Many weeks ago I used an online calculator to determine how much we would get with the tax relief. The money that was calculated was $45.65 for both me and my wife, this is with us having two kids over three and the incomes are $71760 and $37538. You can punch these figures into the calculator here... https://budget.govt.nz/taxcalculator/

Now the problem is, when we received our increases, I received $16.45, and my wife... who works school hours, she got $2.16.

So we are well short of the mark. To be clear in the last 12 months our rates bill went up over $700 and we are now incurring RUC for the electric vehicle which comes to around $650 per year. Those two increases alone come to around $26 per week.

Now the interesting thing is... if I go back to the calculator and say that we have no children, then the amount we receives goes down to $37.09.

So this raises 2 questions...

• Why is the amount lower if you don't have children and how are parents receiving the extra parent amount?


• Why is the amount we are receiving about half of the childless amount when we have kids?


• If the new tax changes only have to do with adjusting tax brackets... why does having kids make a difference at all?

If anyone can help shed light on what's going on here I would appreciate it.

Matt.