Recent Changes

IMPORTANT: This post is specific to New Zealand. If you are not a New Zealand business/taxpayer then it is probably not applicable to you.

Vehicle licensing

On 1 July 2015 the ACC vehicle licensing levy is being reduced. The cost of relicensing most vehicles will drop by around $130 a year. If you need to renew your vehicle’s registration before then, you can save money by renewing your registration to expire in July 2015. Note that the relicensing form and online renewal allow you to specify the number of months, and is not confined to three and six monthly periods only. When your vehicle licence expires after 1 July 2015 the reduction will automatically be applied to your renewal.

The reduced levies will apply to commercial and private light passenger vehicles, cars, utes, vans less than 40 years old and weighing less than 3500kg. They will not apply to motorcycles or mopeds in 2015. Motorcycle-related injuries continue to generate disproportionately high costs for ACC and motorcycle levies are already heavily subsidised by owners of other types of vehicles.

New requirement for Companies

From 1 May 2015 new registration requirements come into force for applications to incorporate a New Zealand Limited Liability company. All New Zealand incorporated companies must have at least one director who lives in New Zealand or who lives in Australia and is a director of an Australian incorporated company. Existing companies on the companies register will have 180 days to comply with these New Zealand ‘resident director’ requirements. In addition, all directors must provide their place and date of birth and all companies must supply their ultimate holding company details (if applicable).   Contact us if you think you may be affected.

Parental tax credit

For babies born on or after 1 April 2015, the Government will increase the parental tax credit from $150 a week to $220 a week, and extend the payment period from eight weeks to ten weeks. How much you receive also depends on:

• your total family income before tax
• the number of dependent children in your care and how old they are
• the number of newborn children per year

You can either receive PTC or paid parental leave. You can’t receive both at the same time. And you can’t receive PTC if your family income for the full eight to ten weeks includes an income-tested benefit, NZ Super, a veteran’s pension, a student allowance, or accident compensation from ACC (unless you are receiving this for less than three months).

Changes to parental leave

The current 14 weeks’ of paid parental leave will be increased to 16 weeks for babies expected or born on or after 1 April 2015.