Pilot For New Tax Debt Service

Inland Revenue (IR) is trialling a new service to contact and help customers manage debt.

The pilot will see IR’s current third-party provider contact about three thousand customers who have a tax debt of less than $5,000.

Why do this pilot?

Spokesperson Jane Elley says there are a significant number of people with simple, low-value tax debt who IR isn’t able to contact one-to-one without the help of a third-party provider.

“We want to try to stop penalties and interest piling up on people and we also want to continue to find cost-effective ways to collect tax from those who owe it. We want to know if using a third-party provider is an efficient and effective way to support customers get their debt sorted,” Jane Elley says.

“We’ve worked successfully with Baycorp for a number of years collecting student loans overseas – that’s why we’ve selected them for this pilot. We’ve carefully considered the privacy concerns in Baycorp undertaking this work, and we’ve wrapped appropriate security and legal protections around it.

“We’re confident in the steps they have in place to protect taxpayer privacy.

“They will contact customers (email, SMS, and phone), confirm the debt, and promote IR’s self-service options, taking the customer through these steps. Where self-service is not enough, customers will be referred to Inland Revenue.

Concern about scam messages and calls

Many people are worried about scam calls and concerned about online security.

“If someone is worried about the authenticity of the caller, they can call Inland Revenue on 0800 775 247 to confirm. there is also information online Baycorp pilot programme.

“When contact is made, Baycorp won’t ask people to click on a link to get to their accounts. There’ll be no asking for credit card or bank account details; no threatening sudden arrest or pressure anyone to act immediately; and no asking for passwords.”

What information is being shared with the third-party provider?

Inland Revenue will only be supplying the information to enable conversations around payment resolution.

They are:
• Full Name
• DOB 
• Contact Details including phone number, email, and physical address
• Specific Tax Type and amount of outstanding debt
• Last Contact date with customer
• Last payment date and amount and how this was made (no account details provided)

All third-party staff who work on Inland Revenue specific work must sign a certificate of confidentiality. The debt always remains with Inland Revenue and Baycorp cannot use the information it receives from us for credit rating purposes. Payment for this work is a fixed fee per case, regardless of contacts or outcome.

The pilot starts today and runs for 5 months.

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