The Inland Revenue or Inland Revenue Department is the public service department of New Zealand charged with advising the government on tax policy, collecting and disbursing payments for social support programmes, and collecting tax. The Inland Revenue's Māori name is an older spelling of Te Tari Tāke, meaning 'The Department Tax'. Despite long vowels in Māori now being expressed with macrons over the vowel rather than double vowels, the department continues to use the double vowel due to the resemblance of the word tāke to the English word take.
History
Inland Revenue started out as the Land Tax Department in 1878. The department was renamed the Land and Income Tax Department in 1892 with the central office set up in Wellington. Only in 1952, when the organisation joined with the Stamp Duties Department, was the organisation known as the Inland Revenue Department. In 1995, a Rewrite Advisory Panel was established to consider and advise on issues arising during the rewriting of the income tax legislation, as part of New Zealand tax reform arising from the Working Party on the Reorganisation of the Income Tax Act 1976. The panel was disestablished in 2014 at the completion of the tax reform.
Service delivery
In 2018–19, Inland Revenue collected $79.5 billion in tax revenue, which was more than 80% of the money the government used to pay for services that all New Zealanders benefited from, including social security and welfare, health and education. Other services included law and order, housing and community development, environmental protection, defence, transport, and heritage, culture and recreation. Inland Revenue is undergoing business transformation activities to make tax and social benefits simpler to receive and pay. As at 2019, these changes have saved $60 million in administrative costs, added $90 million in additional revenue through improved compliance and reduced effort for small to medium-sized businesses. The department also administers the following social support programmes:
In October 2019, an Inland Revenue employee was awarded the State Services Commissioner’s Commendation for Frontline Excellence for her investigation into the suspected multimillion-dollar income suppression by a chain of restaurants. This investigation led to one of the most significant prosecution cases undertaken by Inland Revenue in the past decade.
In 2019 Inland Revenue was awarded a Distinguished Service Award from Multicultural New Zealand in recognition of its support of community members in the aftermath of the Christchurch attacks.
Inland Revenue, along with The Treasury, were finalists at the Spirit of Service Awards 2019 for their partnership work to enhance tax policy through kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, ōhanga and whanaungatanga.
At the 2018 New Zealand CIO Awards, Inland Revenue were finalists in the Business Transformation through Digital and ICT category.
Criticisms
In previous years, Inland Revenue has been criticised for what are seen as heavy handed tactics when forcing payment from debtors, specifically those owing tax arrears and child support payments, and for charging excessive penalties on debts which result in debtors falling into a cycle whereby they are unable to pay the growing amounts they owe. The approach of Inland Revenue has been implicated in a number of suicides and other acts of self-harm. The number of people threatening self-harm in phone calls to Inland Revenue has trended down consistently over the last three years. Between January and August 2019, 168 people contacted Inland Revenue threatening self-harm. That compares to 292 for the 2018 calendar year; 306 for 2017; and 334 for 2016.
List of Ministers
The Minister of Revenue is the political office of Minister for the department of Inland Revenue. Since October 2017, the position has been held by Stuart Nash. ;Key
