Description: The new Act gives effect to the aspects of the Budget 2017 Family Incomes Package that require changes to primary legislation. The Family Incomes Package changes income tax thresholds and two of the tax credits available to lower income individuals and families.

Description: Foreign trusts that have a New Zealand resident trustee who do not prepare financial reports to a higher authoritative accounting standard are now required, under section 21B of the Tax Administration Act 1994, to prepare financial reports to a minimum standard. This was approved by the Tax Administration (Financial Statements-Foreign Trusts) Order 2017 on 21 August 2017. The Order applies to foreign trusts that are required by section 59D of the Tax Administration Act 1994 to file an annual return. In practice this means financial statements for years ended 31 March 2018 and later.

Description: The Privacy (Information Sharing Agreement between Inland Revenue and Ministry of Social Development) Order 2017 approves a new information sharing agreement between Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development.

Description: The Income Tax (Employment-related Remedial Payments) Regulations 2017 came into force on 18 August 2017. The regulations declare a remedial payment made to correct the underpayment of entitlements under the Holidays Act 2003 and/or an employment agreement to be included in the definition of 'extra pay' under the Income Tax Act 2007. Under the PAYE rules, employers are required to use a different method to calculate the amount of tax they must withhold from a payment that is an extra pay than for a payment of salary or wages.

Description: The deemed rate of return for taxing foreign investment fund interests has been set at 6.28% for the 2016-17 income year.

Description: This interpretation statement aims to consolidate all the statements we have published on FBT and motor vehicles. A number of these statements related to earlier versions of legislation and use out-dated section references. This interpretation statement brings all the Inland Revenue statements together in one place in a userfriendly format. This should provide taxpayers with increased certainty in understanding their FBT obligations for motor vehicles and lead to better compliance.

Description: This statement outlines GST and costs associated with mortgagee sales. This statement is a review of OS 15/01 and contains a change in position with regard to input tax deductions for a mortgagee who is subject to the business to business financial services rules.

Description: This special determination relates to the Lifetime Income Fund (the Fund), which is a managed investment scheme in which investors can invest their retirement savings in return for a stream of regular payments for the rest of their life. The determination prescribes the amount of consideration that is solely attributable to an investor's units in the Fund; and the amount of consideration that is solely attributable to the annuity that an investor receives from Lifetime Income Limited under the group life insurance policy that the manager of the Fund is required to take out for the benefit of investors.

Description: This determination inserts a new asset class for 'Abrasive blasting booths' to the 'Cleaning, Refuse, and Recycling' and 'Engineering (including Automotive)' industry categories, that apply from the 2017 and subsequent income years.

Description: This case concerned the disputant's ability to claim interest expenditure on funds borrowed to purchase properties for commercial rental in the 2013 and 2014 income years ('years in dispute'). The disputant is a chartered accountant and operates a consultancy business from his residential address. The disputant's rental and consultancy income went into his various revolving credit accounts. Business and personal expenditure were paid by the disputant from personal credits cards and from funds in the revolving credit accounts. The Commissioner of Inland Revenue ('the Commissioner') raised default assessments for the years in dispute, which were challenged by the disputant in the Taxation Review Authority ('the Authority'). As the disputant was unable to discharge his onus in showing how the Commissioner's assessments were wrong, the Authority, in finding for the Commissioner, made revised assessments disallowing certain losses.

Description: This case was an appeal from the High Court decision of Great North Motor Company Ltd (in rec) v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [2016] NZHC 2708. In that case, Downs J found that the transaction underlying tax losses accumulated by Great North Motor Company Limited (in rec) ('Great North') was a tax avoidance scheme. Great North did not appeal the finding of tax avoidance, rather it focussed on its position that six of the 12 assessments amended were time barred by s108(1) of the Tax Administration Act 1994. Downs J had found that even if the time bar had expired, the tax returns filed were fraudulent or wilfully misleading, and thus it did not apply. Alternatively, he found that the time bar did not apply because time did not accrue during the period Great North was struck off the register.

Description: A taxpayer's application to make a late claim in the Taxation Review Authority was dismissed as no exceptional circumstances applied to its situation.

Description: The taxpayer is a commercial landlord and received a lump sum payment from one of its tenants for early termination of a lease. The Court held that where the taxpayer is in the business of leasing property the lease surrender payment was received by the taxpayer in the ordinary course of the taxpayer's business and was therefore a revenue receipt subject to tax. However, as the case was not clear cut, a shortfall penalty was not appropriate.

Description: Chesterfields Preschools Ltd ('CPL') was placed into liquidation by the High Court following the issuing of a statutory demand by the Commissioner of Inland Revenue ('the Commissioner'). CPL appealed that decision on the basis that it was not insolvent and the debt was disputed. Following a one-day hearing in the Court of Appeal, the Court allowed the appeal on the basis that the amount of 'core debt' was not quantified by the High Court (Sisson v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [2017] NZCA 326). The variability in the figures relied on by the Commissioner and the unchallenged value of CPL's assets meant that it was at least open to doubt that the Court could properly make a liquidation order.