Preparations For Tax Returns And Refunds

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31330, 29 March 1967, Page 12

Preparations For Tax Returns And Refunds

The Inland Revenue Department is getting ready for the annual deluge of income returns from salary and wage earners.

The end of the financial year only two days away, and the department is preparing a programme aimed at issuing refunds within two or three weeks of receiving returns.

This year the department is anxious to have as many returns as possible dealt with before the change to decimal currency.

All refund payments will stop for a fortnight in late June and early July while the Treasury, which handles refunds, adjusts to the new currency. The Regional Controller of Taxation for the South Island (Mr G. M. Hunt) said yesterday that about 65,000 people would file returns in the Christchurch district. It is estimated that more than 90 per cent will get refunds pnd about 5 per cent will have to pay additional tax.

Those required to pay more will have until March, 1968, to settle with the department. The total payout to salary and wage earners last year in Christchurch and district was £700,000. The total taxes collected by the department in the area was £34,000,000, and total refunds to all taxpayers reached £1.6 million. The first trickle of returns will reach the department early next week and will build up to a peak of about 7000 a week by mid-June. Refunds issued before the decimal change will be in the present currency, and those afterwards will be in dollars and cents.

Forms for the return of income are now available at all post offices and offices of the Inland Revenue Department.

Mr Hunt said people who took the trouble to fill in their returns correctly would get their refunds promptly. Many would have to wait if they failed to supply all the information required. Many forgot to attach certificates of their employers, receipts for tax-deductible donations, or exemptions for wives. Failure to sign the form on the first page was also very common. Mr Hunt said if people had lost their certificates of income they should write the full name and address of the employer concerned on the form.

He said an advisory service would be offered again this year. Officers of the department would visit factories and other places where large numbers of people are employed to offer assistance in completing the taxation forms.