IR phone services improving

Media Release

26 October 2012

IR phone services improving

Inland Revenue (IR) has made improvements to its phone service since 2011 but there is still some way to go, according to a recent survey of Chartered Accountants.

IR has previously come under fire for slow response times.

This year, IR rated better in manners and availability in the IR Satisfaction Survey, conducted by the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) and Tax Management New Zealand.

“We welcome the improvement which sees IR’s phone services become much more user friendly,” says NZICA Acting Tax Director Frank Owen FCA.

However, there are still questions around the time taken to answer queries and the consistency of information received, Chartered Accountants say.

According to the survey, 18% of NZICA members had been involved in a tax dispute with the IR during the past year on behalf of their clients or organisation.

Chartered Accountants felt it was hard to get in contact with an appropriate information source (14% poor and 24% fair), the time of response was not acceptable (15% poor and 28% fair) and information received should be more consistent (19% rated poor and 30% fair).

The areas where CAs most want improvement are in the time taken to respond (71%) and the availability of staff with appropriate technical knowledge and experience (60%).

Sixty percent suggested the service could be improved by direct contact lines to the required technical teams.

The cost of disputing an IR assessment also remains an issue.

In 62% of dispute cases where mutual agreement was not reached, the taxpayer conceded citing the process as too expensive (69%) and time consuming (61%).

“The cost of querying IR remains too high for many SMEs to bear. This creates the risk that taxpayers may be paying tax which they may not actually be liable for,” says Frank Owen.

The 2012 survey noted that all areas of phone service at IR had improved compared to the 2010 survey after falling in 2011.

The survey will be released at the NZICA 2012 Tax Conference this weekend.
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