Proposed cuts to employer PAYE costs

Employers may soon see a reduction in the cost of administering PAYE information after a tax officials’ paper was released which puts a number of new options on the table.

Revenue Minister Judith Collins welcomed the report – which is seeking feedback on the proposals – and said some employers were still incurring unnecessary costs.

“We are aware that certain aspects of PAYE, such as correcting simple errors and sending that information to Inland Revenue, are still largely manual,” she said. “This can impose excessive compliance costs on business.”

A tax bill currently before Parliament contains suggestions for reducing employers’ PAYE compliance costs by integrating the PAYE process into normal business activity.

Further proposals released yesterday would make the task of correcting PAYE information errors easier by allowing employers to use payroll software to make corrections to already filed returns, or in some circumstances, to make corrections in a subsequent return.

However, the proposals would not mean that all employers would need to shift to digital services.

“It’s important that all businesses should benefit from simplified PAYE error correction processes,” said Collins. “For that reason, employers who currently file through Inland Revenue’s website or on paper could continue to do so.

“Employers would be able to access their filed returns through myIR to correct their records, and paper-based error correction forms would continue to be available to employers for the foreseeable future,” she added.