FAQ

The sooner you apply, the sooner you will receive your refund! If you have applied online, we aim to have your tax refund paid to you within 5 working days. In fact we achieve this 93.1% of the time. Occasionally it can take a longer and this will usually be due to delays at the Inland Revenue.

• We will send you a notifictaion when your refund has beentransferred to your bank acc. We usually pay out refunds on Tuesday and Friday of each week.
• if your tax return requires additional information, we will contact you and this usually takes us longer to prepare and file.
• if your refund is being reviewed at Inland Revenue. For example if it is a large refund or you have other tax type arrears, please expect some delays.

• If your refund is for the latest financial year, the IRD may not release these refunds until mid June at the earliest and continue to be released in batches throughout the year.

If we have to file a full IR3 for you, the IRD can take up to 6 weeks to process these types of returns and unfortunately we cannot control the IRD’s time frames. The only other delay you will experience is if we, or the IRD, request additional information from you and you fail to supply this information.

 

We require some basic personal information from you in order to process your tax refund such as your full name, address, date of birth etc. We also need your IRD number, which is unique to you, and identifies you personally with the Inland Revenue Department.

You also have to provide your drivers licence details or a copy of approved photo ID. This is a requirement of the IRD and helps us ensure your personal and financial security.

Most importantly, we need you to provide us with the authority to act on your behalf. You do this by ticking some authority statements at the bottom of our on-line application form.

There are some additional questions that might affect the value of your refund such as the age of any children in your care. The application form will take about 3 minutes to complete. We take privacy very seriously. Rest assured that your personal information will be kept safe and secure at all times.

 

If you already owe tax from a previous assessment, we cannot make existing tax bills disappear. You will need to pay the bill by the due date or will incur additonal IRD late payment penalties.

Clients of our agency usually have until 7th April the following year to pay any tax owing. If you are not linked to our agency you will have to pay much sooner than this to avoid any penalties.

Any future refunds will usually be applied by Inland Revenue to the tax arrears first before any remaining balance is refunded. If our assessment indicates that you have not paid enough tax we may not file your return before discussing your obligations with you. 

 

You can view our fees on our FEES page of this website and in the TERMS & CONDITIONS page.

 

What can I claim as a Business Expense?

General Rules:

If you are purchasing something solely for business purposes, then in most instances you can claim the whole cost of the item. 

If you have an expense that is for mixed use (i.e personal and business) then you can only claim the proportion that is used for business (e.g. if you use your mobile phone for both work and personal calls then you can only claim a maximum of 50% of the phone bill). 

N.B. It's really important that you retain a copy  of a valid receipt or invoice. You will be required store/hold copies of all expenses that you claim for up to 7 years. We can only include expenses that you are able to provide evidence of.

Different expenses have different rules on how much tax relief you are entitled, not every item will be 100% tax deductible. Here is a handy guide on some of the different Expense Categories we use:

Advertising - Any costs of advertising your work or services in any way e.g. Print or online advertising

Charitable Donations - Any donations to a registered charity as a part of your business activity (make sure you upload your receipt that has the charity's registration or GST number). 

Cleaning - Any cleaning costs incurred for keeping your office or work-space tidy. 

Consulting & Accounting - Expert advice used to generate income or support your business, or to prepare your tax return. Our fee is 100% tax deductible

Cost of Goods Sold - Costs that are incurred for you to produce your work or provide your services (outside of computer equipment) e.g. Materials used in the creation of a product for sale.

Entertainment - The cost of entertaining clients to grow and develop your business, promoting goods and services. It's worth noting that only 50% of the claim can be accepted as an entertainment expense and must indicate multiple persons present.

Equipment (Purchase) - Any equipment purchased that you need in order to do your job e.g. Mobile phone, handsets, software and upgrades, camera equipment, tools. N.B: Any equipment over $5000 will be depreciated over future years - we take care of this for you 

Equipment Rental - Any equipment hired for business purposes.

Freight & Courier - Any business-related postage or freight costs e.g. stamps, courier fees

General Expenses - Any miscellaneous office or business expenses that you cannot classify anywhere else. You cannot claim glasses/spectacles or the costs of establishing or getting into a business (if you're GST-registered, you can claim GST on the set-up costs). 

Home Insurance - Can claim a proportion of Home Insurance cost based on the size of your home office.  

Home Office Equipment - Any equipment or assets you purchase for your home office. N.B: Any equipment over $5000 will be depreciated over future years - we take care of this for you

Internet/Landline - Your internet or landline phone bills. 

Legal expenses - Any business-related legal advice fees that you might incur. You can claim 100% legal fees up to $10,000/year

Light, Power, and Heating - Any utilities costs relevant to your office or home office. 

Mobile Phone Bills - Mobile phone bills for business use. If the phone is mixed use (i.e. for business and personal) then you may only claim a percentage (eg 40%). 

Motor Vehicle Expenses - Claiming business vehicle expenses in your business is what everybody wants to do – and simultaneously one of the trickiest calculations in your accounts!  

MYTAXBACK is trying to make sure it represents all the costs of your business use. So here is an explanation which covers all the bases on claiming business vehicle expenses.

What can you Claim?

If you own a vehicle that is used in your business, you can claim a portion of the vehicle running costs against your income. The portion you can claim is based on the proportional business use of the vehicle.

Running costs include petrol, repairs & maintenance (including tyres), insurance, road user charges and registration.

If you are a sole trader or partnership and your vehicle is only used for business. You can claim the full running costs without making any adjustments.

One catch to watch out for with determining business use is that travel between work and home is not classed as business use. This can change the resulting business to private use percentage substantially.

If your travel is not all business use then you will need to choose between these two different methods for calculating these vehicle costs:

1) Costs Method

This method is based on keeping accurate records of all actual costs incurred. You have two options under this method:

1/ Use a logbook – this is a log of all travel for a three-month period (required to be updated every three years). This includes the distance, date and reason for the trip. You can use the difference between the odometer reading at the start and end of the three months. This determine the percentage of business use. You can download a free logbook template from the IRD website

2/ If you have not kept a logbook, you may be able to claim up to 25% of all vehicle expenses. However, you could still be asked the justify the percentage claimed with some sort of records, so you will still need to keep some records to claim this.

The claimable cost is calculated by Actual Costs X business Portion.

2) Kilometre Rate Method

There is a two-tier kilometre rate that can be applied to work out vehicle costs to be claimed. You will need to keep a record of the total kilometres travelled to determine your business use percentage (as done above with the other methods).

First tier – this rate covers both fixed and running costs for all vehicles types. This rate is limited to the first 14,000km total travel per year.

Second tier – this rate varies depending on the type of vehicle (petrol, diesel, hybrid or electric). It covers running costs only. This is for additional total kilometres travelled over 14,000.

The claimable cost is calculated for each tier by kilometre rate x kilometres travelled x business portion.

Office Expenses - Any general expenses related to your office or home office

Printing & Stationery - Any printing and stationery that is a business-related expense

Private Office/Desk Space Rental - Use this category when you are renting an office or private desk at a commercial premises or co-working space. This category is not used for your home or living space rental. 

Professional Insurance - Professional Indemnity Insurance, Public Liability Insurance, and insurance of business assets.

Rent/Mortgage Interest/Rates - Any rental costs, rates or council costs, or mortgage interest in relation to your workspace/office.

Repairs and Maintenance - Necessary repair and maintenance work specifically relating to your home office space. For non-office related repairs, you can file these as 'General Expenses'. N.B: IRD may ask you to justify the expenditure so be careful what you claim

Subcontractors - Any business expenses where you have hired sub-contractors, third parties or employed other service providers to carry out work for you.

Subscriptions - Any recurring subscription costs for business-related products e.g. recurring software costs, online magazines, newspaper magazine subscriptions, licensing fees 

Ready to get expert support around your expenses? Then you’ve come to the right place.

 

As soon as you submit your application we will email you confirmation that it has been received and provide you with a brief outline of the what you can expect. We will immediately link you to our agency, which basically means we advise the Inland Revenue that you wish to become a client of our IRD Registered Tax Agency.

The Inland Revenue might post you a letter advising that we have been appointed by you as your tax agent. We then gather information from the Inland Revenue to determine whether you have paid too much tax during the past 5 years and we will claim any refunds owing to you.

Once the assessment is complete we will send you notification of your assessed refund amount. Usually, within a few days, you will receive your tax refund either to your bank account.

We aim to get all refunds issued to our clients within 5 working days of receiving the completed application.

 

You can only complete the on-line application form with a current valid New Zealand driver’s licence. If you do not have a NZ drivers licence, you will be prompted to print out a copy of an authority to act form which you must complete and sign and send to us along with a photocopy of any of the following approved photo ID’s;

• A New Zealand passport
• An Overseas passport with New Zealand immigration visa / permit
• A New Zealand 18+ card
• A New Zealand Firearms licence
• An International Driver’s Permit (issued by a member country of the UN Convention on Road Traffic)
• A New Zealand certificate of identity (issued by Department of Labour or Department of Internal Affairs)

 

​MYTAXBACK is a professional tax agency Registered with the Inland Revenue. When you join us, you can rest assured knowing that we are a front runner in the tax refund industry. We’re passionate about ensuring that hard working NZ tax payers get a fair deal and pay no more tax than they are legally obliged to pay. We can quickly assess your tax position for the past 5 years and will claim any refunds owing to you. We have thousands of happy customers who come back to us time and again and they would only do that if we keep delivering a great service.

If we can’t get you a refund, then nobody can. We have low fees and no hidden charges.

 

That's great news. This means that you have probably already received all your previous tax refunds but we will re-assess all of the past 5 years to make sure no valuable tax credits have been missed.  However, it is only possible to be linked to one tax agent at any point in time so when you join our tax agency the Inland Revenue will automatically delink you from your current/previous tax agent. If you have a rental property or business income, we recommend that you speak with your current tax agent or accountant to discuss this before completing our application form. 

 

If we have claimed a tax refund for you, it is beacuse you have previously authorised us to be your nominated tax agent.​ In accordance with our TnC's we will continue to act as your tax agent until you notify either us or the IRD that you wish for us to stop. 

If you want us to stop acting on your behalf at any stage, you simply need to contact us to tell us. You can do this either by calling us on 0900REFUND or calling the IRD on 0800277774. However, please be aware that if we have already completed any assessments you will still be liable to pay our fee for the work performed up to that point in time. 

 

It's impossible to tell how much anyone's refund will be until we have completed a thorough assessment but there's one sure thing....

We are the only tax agent that GUARANTEES the BIGGEST POSSIBLE NZ Tax Refund

We have issued over 300,000 tax refunds during the past 7 years and during that time the average refund is over $400. The single biggest refund we have recovered was over $22,000, We will claim all of the tax credits that are available to you and ensure that you get as much money back as possible.

 

YES but only if the total refund amount exceeds the amount of the arrears. The IRD will issue the remaining balance as a refund.

However if you have large Child Support or Non Custodial Parent (NCP) arrears, any refund that we claim for you will most likely be withheld by the IRD and transferred to your NCP account. We cannot prevent this from happening and we also cannot view your NCP statement or balance.

If you owe Child Support we recommend that you contact the IRD to set up an arrangement to clear the arrears. Either way, you’ll be better off applying with us than simply leaving the arrears to gather additional interest or late payment penalties.

 

For your Main employment nearly everyone should use M as your tax code....or MSL if you have a Student Loan.

If you receive secondary income from part time employment you should use Secondary tax code. There are several to choose from and it really depends on what you total annual income (before tax) from all sources is likely to be....and whether or not you have a Sudent Loan.

1) If your annual income from all sources is likely to be less than $14,000 (before tax), then you should use SB for your secondary income, or SBSL if you have a student loan. You will only be taxed at 10.5%

2) If your annual income from all sources is likely to be between $14,001 - $48,000, then choose S for your secondary income,  or SSL if you have a student loan. You will be taxed at 17.5%

3) If your annual income from all sources is likely to be between $48,001 - $70,000, then choose SH for your secondary income, or SHSL if you have a student loan. You will be taxed at 30%

4) If your annual income from all sources is likely to be above $70,000, then choose ST for your secondary income, or STSL if you have a student loan. You will be taxed at 33%

If you select the wrong tax code ie if your annual income is abover $70,000 but you choose S, you will be undertaxed and will end up with a large tax bill at year end. The IRD will likely write to you to notify you that you have got it wrong.

If you select SH but your annual income is only $45,000, you will be overtaxed during the year....but don't worry about this as we will claim back all of the overpaid tax at the end of the year.

If you work as a contractor, rather than an employee, you may be asked to select WT (Withholding Tax) as your tax code. This usually menas a flat rate of tax is deducted, often at 20%....but bear in mind that any income you earn over and above $48,000 should be taxed at a higher rate.

Click here to view the IRD's Tax Code Declaration form

 

Legislation only allows us to file tax refunds for the past 5 tax years, however in some special circumstances we are able to claim tax credits for up to 8 years. 

 

No. Once you are linked to our tax agency you do not need to re-apply every year. You will be linked to our agency until you ask us to cease acting as your tax agent. Please refer to our TnC's

We may contact you to confirm your personal details and check on anything that might affect next year's tax refund. You can contact us at anytime to update your address or other contact details. You will need to notify us if you receive any other income other than wages or salary such as interest, dividends or any business income. 

 

Under the 2015 Budget, the Government has introduced the “Bright-line” test (“BLT”) for taxing capital gains made on the sale of residential property.  The test applies to residential property acquired on or after 1st October 2015.

The Bright-line test is a deliberately unambiguous objective test – tightly defined and with a few exemptions. 

Under the Bright-line test, any gains from the sale of residential property bought and sold within a defined period will be deemed as taxable, with the exception of the main family home, inherited property and property transferred as part of a relationship property settlement.  

You will need to provide the following information:

1) The address and certificate of title of the property (your lawyer/conveyancer will hold a copy of cert. of title)

2) The purchase prive and the acquisition date - the date the change of Title is registered

3) The sale price and the disposal date - the date the contract of Sale and Purchase is signed.

4) Your percentage ownership of the property...ie if it is jointly owned by yourself and your spouse, your share might be 50%

Any property sales captured under the Bright-line test are also eligible for tax deductions under two categories.  

1) The first is capital costs, which are deductible in the year of sale.  For example, the cost of land and buildings (plus acquisition and disposal costs), and the cost of any capital improvements are all deductible.  Inland Revenue uses the renovation cost of a new roof to illustrate an example of a capital improvement.  

2) The second category is land holding costs, which are deductible in the year incurred if allowed under normal tax rules, i.e. by matching costs (interest, insurance, rates, repairs, maintenance) with rents.  Otherwise these costs are not deductible.

Losses resulting from the sale of residential property liable for the Bright-line test are ring-fenced so they are only deductible against taxable gains from other land sales.

IRD are now notified of all property transactions and registered against your personal ird number. We recommended proactively declaring profits from sale of property to avoid very costly penalties arising from non-disclosure.

 

 The average refund we claimed on behalf of our clients during the past 11 years is over $400. In June 2021, the average refund was $471. How much will your refund be?

 

​Whilst we cannot be certain whether you will be eligible for a refund, one thing is for certain....... if we can't get you a tax refund, then nobody can! 

 

Once you have engaged us to be your nominated tax agent we are both bound by the terms and conditions of our agreement. You can read those TnC's here.

If you intend to do your own assessment, file your own return and claim your own refund you just need to let us know and we won't charge you a fee. Just make sure that you claim all available tax credits to get the biggest possible refund.

If you do not notify us before we have completed our assessment of your tax posiiton, our fee will be payable for the work we have undertaken.

There are many benefits from using a registered tax agent to assess and file your income tax return, such as:

• You enjoy an Extension of Time for the filing of any tax return
• If you owe tax, not only can we provide free advice of how best to approach this, but also you have a extension of time for paying this to IRD.
• Tax can be a little complex. We will cliam all available tax credits to maximise the tax refunds for our clients.
• We  provide FREE ADVICE regarding any tax matter for our registered clients and can provide detailed explanation for anything that relates to your tax refund assessment.
• We will automatically re-assess all of the past 5 years to ensure that you have not missed any refunds owing to you.
• The penalties for errors in your tax return submisison can be time consuming and costly to fix. We make sure that there are no errors in your year end assessment.

We can't work and provide our services for free. Our fees are low and we always aim to get our clients the biggest possible refunds.

 

​In order to complete our on line application form you will need a valid IRD number and a current NZ drivers licence. You need to ensure that the information on your licence is exactly the same as the information you enter into our application form. We use this information to undertake a drivers licence check through VEDA. Even if one single letter or digit is different it will fail this check. So please check your data carefully.  Also, if your drivers licence is expired or suspended then we will not be able validate it using the VEDA service and you will be unable to complete the on line application. We can only attempt to verify your drivers licence twice so 2 failed attempts means you will be unable to proceed.

However, if you then select 'no drivers licence', you will still have the option of printing out a pdf version of the application form which you will need to print, sign, attach approved photo ID and then send back to us. If you need any help with this please call us on 09-5799022 and we will explain what you need to do.

 

You can only get tax refund if you have paid too much tax....ie have had too much tax deducted from your pay during the course of the tax year. If you pay the right amount of tax, you cannot get a tax refund....therefore you should not worry that you are not due a refund this year.

If you are not entitled to a tax refund this year, it simply means that you have NOT been OVER TAXED. If your income is solely from salary and wages, your employer(s) has either deducted the right amount or too little tax from your wages during the past tax year. Or you have been using the wrong PIR rate for your investment income (kiwisaver or bank interest).

If your friends or colleagues get a bigger tax refund than you, that may mean that they had way too much tax deducted from their weekly pay and therefore had less take home pay each week. In effect they have been loaning some of their weekly pay to the IRD and they can't claim it back until the end of the tax year.

Also remember the only way you can end up with a tax bill is if you have had too little tax deducted from your wages.

We will claim back all of the tax that is owed to you when we file your return.

 

We will notify you of your refund eligibility soon. We can't tell for certain until you have completed our applciation form but in our experience most clients who apply on line with us get usually get a tax refund. The average tax refund is over $400 but you might be entitled to more tax back. 

 

There are several reason why you may not receive the full refund issued by IRD. These are:

• You may have tax arrears owing for a different tax period. In this case the IRD will transfer a portion of your refund to off-set what you owe them
• You may owe child support, in which case the IRD will use yur refund to off-set the child support thta you owe.
• Your income tax refund may be transferred to re-pay any overpayments of Working For Family Tax Credits that you received.
• Our fee will be deducted form the refund before it is transferred to your account. You can view our fees here. Any outstanding fee that you owe will be deducted form your tax refund.

 

Tax refunds are not issued on the same day for everyone. Not everyone will receive a tax refund.

If your refund has been released by IRD, you can expect to receive it within 3 working days. We will notify you when the refund is paid to your bank account. We usually transfer refunds to our clients on Tuesday and Friday each week.

If you are due a tax refund but it hasn't yet been released by IRD, rest assured that we are working on it and will get it released asap. We'll let you know when it is transferred to your bank account.

Please be patient. You can call us on 09-5799022 if you wish to discuss anything regarding your application or refund.

 

You need to pay your tax bill directly to the IRD. There are a few different ways that you can do this. 

Here are some payment instuctions.....

https://www.ird.govt.nz/how-to/making-payments/electronic-payments/

 

 

If you need to update your bank acocunt number with us, please call us on 09-5799022. 

Alternatively please send us an email with your bank details and attach a copy of your drivers licence or passport (so that we know it is from you). We cannot update your bank account without first confirming your identity.

If we have transferred your refund to your old bank account, we will contact you via email once the refund has bounced back to our Trust account.

 

There are many reasons why you might need to file an IR3. We don't make this decision, it is determined by IRD. Once IRD determine that you must file an IR3, no refund will be issued and no donations rebates will be paid out until the IR3 return has been filed

IRD will require you to file an IR3 if any of the following situations apply:

• You have previously received untaxed income of any kind eg. from self employment, rental income, or contractor income
• An IR3 was filed, or is overdue for an earlier tax year.
• The IRD suspect that you have received incoem form self employment, cash jobs or contract work.
• You are a shareholder in a company, a partner in a partnership or a beneficiary of a Trust
• You have expenses to claim that will reduce your tax liability
• You received (or applied for) a covid wage subsidy, resurgent payment, a covid support payment or applied for a covid small busines loan
• Have overseas income or have traded any shares.
• You have sold a property that is subject to the Brightline Test

If you have received any untaxed income, you may also be able to claim a variety of expenses that will reduce your tax liability. We can provide free advice on how to reduce your tax bill or increase your tax refund.