Shout out to the good old NZ IRD

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Shout out to the good old NZ IRD

johno1234

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#323566 16-Dec-2025 11:20

I've been around long enough and dealt with them for long enough to remember when the IRD were right pack of remorseless uncaring unhelpful bastards. Some years ago that started changing and they became quite helpful as long as you honestly keep them informed.

I just had a call from them - which I missed but called back and got a different person. They were following up because I had set up my self-employed self on Kiwisaver some months ago but had not made any employer/employee deductions and wanted to know why was that. I explained that I hadn't worked out the correct net/gross and didn't really understand how the money gets into the provider's fund. The IRD lady then patiently guided me through the whole thing (was able to see me remotely operating on the IRD portal), answered all my questions, sorted out a couple of admin details and that was that. It would have cost me quite a lot to have got the same advice from my accountant.

This is consistent with my IRD interactions over the last couple if years. They are now very good and helpful to deal with. Well done IRD.

networkn

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#3444517 16-Dec-2025 11:25

I had a similar experience where due to a misunderstanding, our accountant hadn't filed the company return. They were relaxed and very pleasant and set a really generous new next step timeframe.

xpd

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#3444575 16-Dec-2025 14:30

When you get the right person/dept there, they are very good. Its just the process of getting to them that drives you nuts :)

XPD / Gavin

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snj

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#3444581 16-Dec-2025 15:00

My mum had a good experience with them recently too. She'd missed something by mistake off her most recent IR3 return that they picked up (I can't remember to whom it advantaged) during the processing.

Instead of making a big deal about it, they simply went "Hey we found X was slightly wrong, we've fixed it, here is an attached summary that shows our amendment, your return is now processed. Let us know if you think we got it wrong otherwise you're all good."

Also got a slightly surprising e-mail from them this month after notifying them her brother died recently, we have to clarify that it means what we think it does, BUT if it does, it seems for simple returns where income is all PAYE/bank interest (and normally covered by PTS returns), they're doing away with the need for partial year IR3 returns to close off tax accounts.

Benjip

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#3444594 16-Dec-2025 15:42

This mirrors every interaction I've had with them the past few years as a small business owner. Always friendly and helpful and you never get the impression they're trying to trick you or get you in trouble (quite the opposite).

alikat

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#3445324 18-Dec-2025 13:28

As someone who deals with them every single day, its definitely a case of getting the right person first and foremost. They have gotten worse recently for us which is a flip from the softly gentle approach during the covidy years, but thats more a policy direction to recover more unpaid tax for the government accounts and I'm working in the more complex areas than the regular tax payer.

But most issues I see could have been easily resolved if the phone had been picked up much earlier and discussed than a head buried in the sand and ignored. And IR like those that front foot any issues and are more likely to work with you for a resolution.

KiwiSurfer

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#3445384 18-Dec-2025 14:42

A few years back i had issues with the education payroll reverting my tax code to a secondary tax code for my five figure income as a teacher. Twice requested it be changed back to a main tax code and they would revert it back to a secondary code the next pay run. I got quite cross with the payroll admin at the school I worked at and they suggested I get in touch with the IRD as appaerently most errors of that type orginate from the IRD.

Given all the Novopay ficaso I was dubious about that but I did contact the IRD to get their side of the story. After some weeks I got an apology message from the IRD.

Apparently as I had two income sources (one being a normal teachers salary and the other for a small one-off job I did) the IRD system simply can't handle it correctly and decides the $xx,xxx income is secondary income and a small $xxx income is my main income. They acknowleegd that they were sending letters automatically to the education payroll instructing them to change my tax code to S -- an instruction the payroll is legally obligied to follow overridding any instructions from myself as employee. Apparentlty the tax code form employers ask employees to fill in is not worth the paper it's printed on. They said there was nothing they could do to change it -- "the computer said so" as the old saying goes.

However their solution was to add my IRD account to a blacklist so the IRD's automated system doesn't send out letters to employers for me.

Nice for IRD to apologise and put in a workaround, but can't believe their system looks at a five digit income source and decides thats secondary to a three digit income source. Bonkers.

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mattwnz

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#3445395 18-Dec-2025 15:29

Just hope they don't contract out their customer support overseas in the future. It is one department that should always be based in NZ IMO

johno1234

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#3445464 18-Dec-2025 17:58

mattwnz:

Just hope they don't contract out their customer support overseas in the future. It is one department that should always be based in NZ IMO

Due to the sensitivity of the private data involved I doubt it could be contracted out, even in NZ let alone abroad.

Goosey

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#3445509 19-Dec-2025 09:05

Yep, agree…it’s a changed culture…

had some tasks to sort and they were very helpful on the phone and helped me. They made some back end changes to give me the visability I needed.

However, my phone call to them was after submitting an online message to them.

funny, about 3 weeks later I get a response to the online message! (I guess they don’t make good CRM notes or check as they would have seen my issues were resolved by phone call and other tasks were already completed / in progress).