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Moving into 2022-23, we'll continue to play our part in progressing the Government's priorities for accelerating the recovery from COVID-19, improving family and whānau wellbeing and looking at the fairness of the tax system.

The new Cost of Living Payment is aimed at helping an estimated 2.1 million New Zealanders. The payment of $350 is split into 3 monthly payments to be paid in August, September and October 2022.

To get ready for the payments, our people have been tidying up issues or errors in customers' 2022 tax returns and Working for Families assessments as this information is key to determining if people are eligible for the payments. We've also worked to update the bank account details of more than 200,000 customers so the payments reach them easily.

Our people been preparing our technology to handle the payments. They've also been providing information about who is eligible by engaging with community groups and tax agents, and using our websites, social media and phone technology. We've translated information for diverse communities.

When we designed the COVID-19 support schemes, we anticipated there would be some risk of fraud, abuse or gaming. We've set up an oversight group that is reviewing the integrity of these schemes. We're using our analytics capabilities to identify these customers and we're responding to them in a variety of ways, including targeted campaigns and direct messaging through intermediaries. When we need to, we're also taking enforcement action.

To help all our customers stay on track with their tax obligations, we'll continue to take a straightforward and helpful approach and intervene early if we think customers are at risk of getting into debt.

It's a priority for us to do better as an organisation in meeting our Treaty obligations and services to whānau Māori. We're continuing to roll out Māhutonga, our programme for integrating te ao Māori and te Tiriti o Waitangi into everything we do. In 2022-23, we will progress Mauri Ora Te Whānau, our Māori Customer Strategy, and our people will be learning to be comfortable with te reo and tikanga Māori through our new foundation capability programme.

By the end of 2022, the Government will update its Tax and Social Policy Work Programme. This will set out our future policy focus. We're continuing our research into the tax paid by high-wealth individuals and working on the Tax Principles Bill. We're also contributing to the cross-government review of Working for Families and to work on debt owed by people to government. We'll also be implementing the change to pass-on child support payments to carers.

As the steward of New Zealand's tax system, Inland Revenue is beginning its next regulatory review. This is a 'health check' of the system to help identify any problems that exist such as rules that don't work as they should because they're too complex or easy to misinterpret.

It's important for us to keep improving our everyday services so tax and payments are easy to get right and hard to get wrong. We'll continue helping customers to do as much for themselves as possible using digital channels like myIR. At the same time, we'll continue supporting customers who cannot use them.

A key initiative underway is upgrading the technology we use in our contact centres to make it more flexible and cost-effective, and enable a better experience for customers. The technology will mean we can use new ways to understand and interact with our customers.

Providing our people with a positive, safe, sustainable and inclusive work experience and work place underpins everything we do.

We're reshaping our culture through an initiative called Te Pou o te Tangata. 'Te Pou o te Tangata' means 'personal endeavour', which relates to being sincere in how we act and conduct ourselves with other people. We want to create a single set of descriptors that better reflect who we are as an organisation and that will continue to build on the momentum we generated during our transformation.

We're working with our entire Inland Revenue whānau to do this. We're incorporating te ao Māori concepts of whakawhanaungatanga and manaakitanga to make sure everyone at Te Tari Taake Inland Revenue has a voice and those voices are heard.

Inland Revenue is committed to achieving cross-government broader priorities, including becoming more diverse and inclusive, reducing emissions and buying goods and services from a more diverse range of suppliers.

We're committed to operating sustainably and reducing our environmental footprint. We have a set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2025 and 50% by 2030.

Progressing Government environmental policies

Last updated: 15 Sep 2022
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