IRD – What we’re seeing
Where’s My Refund? Read on to hear about some of our recent interactions with IRD about your refunds and other things.
• IRD’s ‘standard processing time’ for tax returns is officially up to ten weeks. Before this they do not need to take any actions requested by us. A promptly issued refund one year unfortunately doesn’t guarantee the same the next year.
• We recently had a refund cheque issued on plain, unmarked A4 paper. When questioned, IRD insisted the ‘cheque’ could be banked. Predictably the bank rejected it. We returned the cheque to IRD for a replacement, who then lost it.
• Tax refunds are routinely put ‘under review’ without advising us. When we call IRD to follow up we are told that a ‘referral’ needs to be made to get the refund out of review with the referral itself taking 10-15 days!
• An application relating to tax arrears was submitted with very detailed information. The application went ignored and we followed up. IRD then said that the information supplied was out of date, and requested a full update of the supporting information at unnecessary time and cost.
• Where once we were able to have simple issues resolved over the telephone, we are usually told to make a request in writing, which involves extra effort.
