Wellington Business Owner Appeals To Tax Bosses To Ensure Good Faith Negotiations

Wellington hospitality business owner and radio host Nick Mills is urging the Revenue Minister and Commissioner of Inland Revenue to intervene in a failed negotiation to settle outstanding tax payments.

Mr Mills has spent the past eight months negotiating with the IRD to settle historic tax issues, but officials have constantly moved the goal posts.

“We managed to raise more than 40% of the outstanding debt as part of our negotiations, but the IRD declined to accept that.

“It has been incredibly frustrating and stressful, and we know we’re not the only ones going through this distressing process.

“We continue to meet our current tax obligations while supporting many households through our family-owned business.”

Mr Mills said their hospitality outlets were slammed by Covid, followed by high inflation, high interest rates, general downturn in Wellington’s CBD and unfavourable decisions to operating hours in our late-night venues which had a severe impact on trade.

“We have been in business for more than 40 years, but the last four years has been particularly challenging. We have fought hard to stay afloat and meet our financial obligations and will continue to fight.”

Tax lawyer Mike Lennard says he’s never seen such a dismissive attitude by tax officials in the three decades he’s worked in the sector.

As a former Director of Litigation at IRD, Mr Lennard knows what it takes to negotiate successful recovery of debts, and the current approach is completely unreasonable.

“There has been a gross breach of good faith negotiations on the part of officials, and this needs to be addressed urgently.”

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