Simplified Taxes: For Real This Time?

Yes, we’ve heard it all before. I can almost hear a chorus, yet you are still reading – is it because an accountant actually agrees with simplifying our rather complex system?

Last year the (then) Minister of Commerce, Simon Power, announced that the National government would be slashing $90 million per year from compliance costs for business. These savings would be particularly focussed on the small and medium business sector. We now have a special reporting board set up to work out how this is going to happen, and a working party made up of various sectors are operating to tight deadlines to get the new reporting regime in place. Is it a good idea - well yes of course. Anything that saves our small and medium business some money and allows them to focus on growing their business is a good thing. But does it go far enough? My view is no. When you think about it, we have about 450,000 SME businesses in New Zealand.

If we save $90 million in compliance costs, each business will benefit by only $200 per year. It's hardly going to be the make or break for businesses in my view.

So, as we say at Hayes Knight - what's next?

Well, maybe tax simplification could be the answer if it went hand in hand with the reduced reporting requirements. Interestingly enough, the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) released a thought leadership paper back in October 2009 which sought to address this very issue.

Unsurprisingly, when NZICA first released the paper, it really didn't get much exposure and certainly didn't get much support. I think it is fair to say that there were a number of members of my profession that were concerned about their own businesses disappearing if these radical changes gained wide spread acceptance. Now, a couple of years down the track, version 2 of this paper has been made available for consultation, and in my view it is pretty good.

It is important to understand that this paper serves to prompt further thought, with a view that removing compliance on small and micro business would reduce cost and allow these businesses to grow.

The key component to the paper is that small and micro businesses would no longer need to prepare financial statements for tax purposes. Now this is really stretching the boundaries, and really going to reduce costs for small businesses if it is accepted.

Basically, any business that is not registered for GST and has total sales of less than $60,000 will pay tax at 14% of turnover unless they are a trader, then the rate will be 7%.

Small businesses will be those that have sales revenue between $60,000 and $600,000, and they will pay their income tax when they pay their GST - either on a two monthly basis if that remains or on a quarterly basis if that change is also adopted. Most of our current tax rules will become a thing of the past, and we will simply pay tax on a cash flow basis. That is, 'money in' minus 'money out' = profit, and then multiply that by the tax rate. No need to worry about capital expenditure and depreciation - the whole lot is deductible for tax purposes.

The biggest impediment is likely to be the out-dated IRD computer system. I did hear the Prime Minister recently announced that they are looking at throwing $1 billion at an upgrade. How long this will take I cannot say, but maybe a new system will be the catalyst for change?

Does this sound too good to be true? Maybe, but I think the 48% of New Zealand businesses that have revenue of less than $600,000 per annum will love the reduced compliance costs. Maybe that means that these businesses can focus on getting quality and timely reports out of their systems that allow them to make real decisions for real benefit.

About the Author

Matthew Bellingham is CEO of Hayes Knight NZ Limited Chartered Accountants.
Matthew is also Chair of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants’ Public Practice Advisory Board.

W www.hayesknight.co.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media