Text supplied by IRD

Over the last couple of months, we’ve told you about some of the upcoming changes to income tax via our ‘Changing for You’ campaign.

In March 2019, Parliament passed legislation to make the income tax process for most individuals more straightforward. These changes will apply from 1 April 2019 and to the end-of-year processes for the current tax year (1 April 2018-31 March 2019).

Here’s a reminder of what to expect:

• You’ll receive an income tax assessment if your only income is from employment or investments
• The tax refund process will be automatic for most individuals
• You’ll be notified if you look like you’re using the wrong tax code
• You’ll be able to upload donation receipts online throughout the year via myIR

Most tax refunds will be paid automatically from late May until July. To find out more about the changes, and what these mean for you, visit the IRD webiste website.

 Dates for your diary

In March we held our final dress rehearsal to get our timing and sequencing right ahead of 26 April, when the next changes designed to make tax more straightforward come into effect.

Our services will be unavailable for a short period, taking advantage of the Easter and ANZAC Day public holidays, to allow for the changes to be made. By closing over these dates, which include just two working days, we hope to minimise the disruption for you and limit the time our services will be unavailable.

You need to know that:

• Our core systems, our front of office counters and our contact centres will shut down from 3pm on Thursday 18^th April 2019.
• Systems and services will be back open on the morning of Friday 26^th April 2019.

Payday filing is here

Payday filing became mandatory on 1 April, which means all employers must now be payday filing.

This means that you:

• Need to file employment information within:
  • Two working days if filing electronically, or
  • Ten working days/twice-monthly if filing on paper
• Can file in advance; don’t need to file nil returns
• No longer need to file an Employer Deductions form (IR345)
• Need to file additional details about new and departing employees.

Remember, payment due dates stay the same.

Our latest webinar aims to answer all of your key questions about payday filing. You can watch this on demand here.

For more information on payday filing, visit the IRD website.

 New website goes live in April

Our new website will go live as part of our next transformation release in April 2019. Featuring a modern new-look homepage, the new site will also initially present child support, working for families and income tax content in a crisper, more accessible style, as tested on the beta test site.

The remainder of the current IR website’s content will be updated, tested, and incorporated into the new site over the coming year. The greatly-improved site navigation, layout and global search will allow you to get around and search for content across the two sites during this time easily.

Other features of the new site include:

• Shorter content and fewer pages
• The ability to navigate content by role, situation, topic or task
• A responsive design allowing you to view the site on any device
• An improved online experience for those who are visually impaired.

If you have bookmarks or links to child support, working for families and income tax pages on the current IR website, there is a small chance these may break when the new site goes live, or redirect to other pages. You may need to re-establish these when the new site goes live.

Text supplied by IRD – find out more at the IRD website