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Some types of income have tax deducted before you get paid. These include:

  • salaries and wages
  • schedular payments
  • Work and Income benefits
  • ACC compensation
  • student allowances
  • New Zealand Superannuation
  • interest from savings accounts and investments
  • Portfolio investment entity (PIE) income
  • dividends from shares
  • Māori authority payments
  • employee share scheme benefits.

Your employer, payer or bank deducts the tax before they pay you. The tax rate they use depends on your income and the information you give them.

Tax summary

What do I need to do?

Give your IRD number and tax code, tax rate or prescribed investor rate (PIR) to your employer, payer, bank, or PIE so they deduct the right amount of tax.

You need to tell them if your tax code, tax rate or PIR changes.

If we notice you are using a tax code, tax rate or PIR that does not suit your circumstances we will ask your employer, payer or PIE to change it and notify you.

At the end of the tax year we'll automatically calculate your income tax assessment - how much you've earned, and how much tax you've paid. We'll ask you to check the assessment and tell us about any changes. We might ask you to give us more information about your income or expenses you want to claim.

You might be due a refund or have more tax to pay.

Income tax assessments

Last updated: 24 Mar 2021
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