Clever dick tricks

Clever dick tricks

A few years ago a particular Minister of Finance referred to schemes promoted by tax professionals as clever-dick tricks. We cannot say we agree with the Minister but in this case the IRD may prove him correct. Over the coming months the Department is rolling out a data matching audit project to check if NZ taxpayers have declared income from an investment in a Pacific Island tax haven.  

The IRD has a list of the 37,000 NZ investors and has been doing some checking of their tax returns. The IRD has found that only 750 investors had included the investment. An example noted by the IRD resulted in the tax bill of an investor increasing by $180,000. Since making public the Department's intention to audit the 37,000 NZ investors, over 1,000 voluntary disclosures have been made.

Yes Minister, not such a clever trick after all.