The Employment Relations Amendment Bill 2018 has passed in Parliament and employers can expect to feel some deja vu as many of the changes roll back legislation passed by the National Government between 2008 - 2017.

 A number of employment law changes are coming into effect this year.

If enacted, the new loss ring-fencing rules will come into play from 1 April 2019 for negatively geared rental properties. This has been introduced in order to close the perceived ‘loopholes’ that allows highly geared investors to offset their rental loss against their other income.

From 1 April 2019 a change is proposed to Research and Development Tax incentives. The current cash out of tax losses approach is effectively a loan of 28% of Research & Development tax losses which is repaid when the business makes a profit. The new regime proposes a tax credit for 15% of eligible Research & Development expenditure. There would be a limited form of refundable tax credits.

From 1 April 2019 it will be mandatory for employers to submit payroll information and employee information to Inland Revenue every payday rather than once a month, so if you haven’t already, you need to start thinking about how this will affect your business and the PAYE returns filing processes you already have in place.

A new Bill called the “GST Offshore Supplier Registration and Remedial Matters” bill is set to introduce new rules to capture GST from goods worth less than $1,001. This will be done by obliging overseas companies which sell goods online that have sales of more than $60,000 (the normal GST threshold) to register for GST and charge GST on any goods less than $1,000 that are sold (including shipping and insurance).

Walker Wayland Auckland has partnered with Enterprise Care in the 2019 New Zealand Not for Profit Salary Survey and Report.  Enterprise Care has operated within the NfP sector for over 30 years; and in January released the Inaugural New Zealand not for Profit Salary Report.

For those of us who are interested in where our taxes go when paying for fuel at the local gas station the below outlines the breakdown to this question.  

As of writing this article the price of petrol per litre was $2.42. Based on AA New Zealand’s website the following shows taxes paid per litre at the pump:

The Inland Revenue Department are introducing “Automatic Tax Refunds” from April 2019.

 This will apply for individuals who are not required to file an actual tax return.

The Holidays Act Taskforce appointed by the Government has released an Issues Paper outlining potential changes to the Holidays Act 2003. The review was initiated following significant non-compliance with the Act, mainly relating to employees on non-standard hours, or variable incomes, having entitlements calculated incorrectly.

The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2018-19 Modernising Tax Administration and Remedial Matters) Bill contains a number of proposed changes to modernise and improve the administration of tax.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FACTA”), Anti-Moneylaundering Legislation (“AML”) and the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) are recent legislation aimed at preventing terrorist and criminal funding channels, reducing tax evasion, and bringing New Zealand in line with OECD guidelines.

The Winter Energy Payment is an extra payment from Work and Income (WINZ) to help with the cost of heating your home over the winter months and is available from 1 July 2018 this year.

Email hacking is becoming more prominent with $2.2 million being reported lost from scams in the first nine months of this year, this is up from . 

Hackers are altering the invoices of companies and sending out to clients. If you receive an invoice with a notification of new account details, we urge you to contact the company and confirm it is legitimate.