1. Introduction
Inland Revenue intends to deliver tax and social policy systems that will achieve the following outcomes:
- Revenue is available to fund government programmes through people meeting payment obligations of their own accord.
- People receive payments they are entitled to, enabling them to participate in society.
- New Zealanders benefit economically and socially through Inland Revenue working collaboratively across our external environment.
Achieving these outcomes requires a focus on developing regulatory processes that will:
- maintain and enhance tax policy within our coherent broad-base, low-rate tax policy settings;
- fulfil our international tax obligations and address base erosion and profit shifting; and
- through the transformation of Inland Revenue’s business, increase customer centricity and the ease with which individuals and businesses can engage with the tax system.
Good progress has been made on these areas of focus. For example:
- The Business transformation of Inland Revenue is on track to make significant savings in time for customers. For example, from April 2016, MYOB and Xero customers have been able to file GST returns online.
- New Zealand’s tax system is considered coherent[1] and is well regarded.
- We are active participants in the international tax community and are implementing measures developed with OECD to address base erosion and profit shifting – for example, we are on track to implement the international information sharing platform (AEOI[2]) by 2018.
The following information provides an overview of Inland Revenue’s role and approach to regulatory management in terms of:
- the scope of Inland Revenue’s activities and our regulatory regimes; and
- the tax policy work programme.
[1] Reviewed in 2012 – the Savings and Investment Taxation Review.