BOOKLET ON P.A.Y.E.

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28493, 24 January 1958, Page 7

BOOKLET ON P.A.Y.E.

Tax Tables And Instructions

Many thousands of copies of the P.A.Y.E. booklet of tax tables and instructions for employers have been printed by the Government Printer and delivered to tax offices throughout New Zealand. The booklet is of 48 foolscap-size pages, of which 37 are tables of deductions and examples of calculations based on ordinary weekly and overtime earnings. Secondary employment tables are also included.

Several thousand copies are being held by the Inland Revenue Department in Christchurch and one room is piled high with stacks of the booklets. A course of instruction for internal procedure in the department will begin today. Four main forms are involved in employer deductions, classifying the tax codes of employees and for paying in deductions made from earnings, Deduction certificates will be issued by April 20 of each year and the employer will then furnish a reconciliation annual * statement to the department by May 15. Different rates of deduction apply for withholding payments, where the earnings are not made in a definite pay period. Company directors will face the highest rate of 5s in the £. Differentiation is made between shearers and drovers, between apprentice riders and jockeys, and agricultural work and fruit picking.

Mail contractors, school bus operators, milkmen and refuse collectors are classified together, but road cleaners, caretakers and office cleaners are separated, but at the same rate of deduction. Separate provision is made for fees earned by journalists and photographers, demonstrators and theatrical performers. Jurors’ and witnesses’ fees are specified and a separate section is devoted to the proceeds from the sale of opossum skins and whitebait. Annual and special bonuses are to be taxed as a separate week’s wages but incentive and regular bonuses will be added to the ordinary weekly earnings. Domestic workers are among the few cases where deductions need not be made by the employer but the employee must account for the taxation to the department by the twentieth of each month. Child Earners Children who earn money by employment will have deductions made from their wages as the new system applies to all earnings over £2 a week. However, the booklet says that most paper runners and similar child workers earn less than £2 and their earnings will not be affected. Compulsory military trainees may deliver a tax code declaration to the authorities and obtain the benefit of the ordinary tax code, but in cases where the employer makes up the service pay by subsidy, a full deduction will be made on the subsidy and the service pay will be made in full. An ominous note is sounded by a paragraph on penalties for Late payments by employers. A penalty of 10 per cent, will accrue on amounts not accounted for or deducted before the twentieth of each month. Provision is made for a fine of £lOO, imprisonment for 12 months, or both if an employer is convi ?d of having failed to pay into the department tax deducted from employees’ earnings. Visitors to New Zealand who earn money during their stay will be liable for P.A.Y.E. and are entitled to claim exemptions for all dependants in the same way as New Zealand residents.

Special tables, in addition to the booklet, are available from the department for shearers and shearing contractors, but for piece workers the deductions will be calculated m the ordinary way