I received a phone call this morning from the IRD. It seems one of the GST returns I did from the February/March 07 period (bear in mind I do GST returns for half a dozen different entities) had an issue with it.
I vaguely recall a GST adjustment I made and a covering letter sent to the IRD to explain the situation. Now out of the blue, some four months later I had a phone call asking for a detailed breakdown of the changes made.
The IRD costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year to run, they’ve got management for Africa and systems galore – I simply cannot understand how it can possibly take four months for them to get around to checking a GST return.
We all know what would happen if we paid an amount to the IRD four months late – late payment penalties, interest and hassles would descend upon us – shame it doesn’t work the other way around.
Almost makes you want to vote Act doesn’t it?????
Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. 
Funny thing is that I had the complete opposite recently. The called me at 7pm on a Friday night! I was taking my wife out for dinner but took the call anyway.
The reason they called was that I had registered as an employer the _day_ before (yes – they can be efficient) and just wanted to check that I had everything I needed and to ask if there was anything they could do for me. Yes, that is right – this is the IRD!!!
I was pretty damned impressed actually. And now that NZ is apparently the 2nd easiest country in the world to do business in I wouild say perhaps IRD are catching on?
Cheers Ed – They’ll be stoked to hear that!
all together now.. Thanks Dave! (Henderson) for teaching IRD a thing or two about service without a snarl. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/organisation/story.cfm?o_id=89&ObjectID=10382813
Interesting call Grant but all he did was make them more likely to snarl at the rest of us (oh and caused them to find a new home in Christchurch)