Keep your finger on the pulse with our latest blog posts

If you’re self-employed, you’re in charge of your KiwiSaver contributions. KiwiSaver is not automatically deducted from your earnings if you are self-employed. You will need to decide how much you want to commit to your retirement fund, if anything, and make these contributions manually each year. The contribution payments can...

Recently Inland Revenue have started a Real Estate Sector Campaign to investigate the level of expenses agents are claiming against their income. Expenses that are directly related to your business include real estate licenses, advertising and marketing, ACC, wages and accountancy. Other expenditure relating to training conferences and seminars relating...

Time to review employee perks Along with a new top tax rate introduced on April 1st, we also had a new top fringe benefit tax rate come into effect. What is fringe benefit tax? Fringe benefit tax, or FBT, is a way of taxing employee benefits. It’s designed to ensure...

Return On Investment (ROI) OCR New Zealand’s official cash rate (OCR) has been at 0.25 since March 2020 and this has reduced the return Kiwis can get on bank deposits. As bank deposit interest rates are currently very low (below 1% return) with no foreseeable increase in the next 1...

The Government has announced significant changes to the bright line test along with the addition of other tax policies that will have an impact on the tax obligations of residential property owners. These changes apply to properties that are acquired on or after 27 March 2021, however exemptions apply to...

Paid parental leave just got easier. As of March 2021, your staff can apply for paid parental leave via myIR on the Inland Revenue website. The IRD Website can now pre-populate information it already holds for customers, such as contact details, name of employer(s), and an estimate of average weekly income...

You may have read in the news over the last couple of weeks that the Holidays Act (“the Act”) has had an overhaul. Part of this was due to the confusion over payments to staff under the Act. Many haven’t understood that under the current Act holiday pay can be...

The Covid pandemic has changed the way we work and ushered in a new era of hybrid working – but is your business ready and able to offer this mix of on-site, off-site and remote working? When businesses were forced to close down their physical offices and workspaces, this brought...

Did you know the main reason people take time off work is due to poor mental health? This means, it’s in your best interest to promote positive mental health at work. Investing in building and maintaining good mental wellbeing at work boosts productivity, sales, creativity, and customer satisfaction. Here are...