Mother outraged as IRD takes $1000 a week from account
Lynette Davies said the $1000 the department is trying to take each week from her is an unfeasible amount of money.
RNZ reported earlier this week that Inland Revenue is taking a tougher line on recovering debt that it is owed - with 16,500 notices sent about planned bank deductions since mid-June, 25 percent more than for the whole of last year.
Between mid-June and 30 September, there had been 8181 deductions completed, which had recovered $17 million. There were another 6026 deductions in progress, which had collected $5.5m.
There is an estimated $10 billion in tax debt owing, although that does not include child support, which sits at about $1 billion.
Davies said she could not afford the $1000 a week the department wanted from her account, which is to cover child support debt.
She shared concerns expressed to RNZ last week about the way that child support is calculated. There have been calls for an overhaul amid concerns about how custody arrangements are assessed and transparency around parents' income.
She said the debt arose about a decade ago, when her daughter was 15, when she moved between her care and that of her ex-husband.
Amid a dispute between the parents, Inland Revenue continued to tell her that she was liable for child support.
"I let the IRD know that I was no longer the liable parent but was the custodial one. They wouldn't believe me."
The debt grew with penalties to about $23,000. The penalties were wiped, which took it back to $16,000.
"Three weeks ago they took $1000 out of my bank account. I was pretty upset at that, I'd had no notifications. It's actually more than I have available a week to pay," she said.
She was told to submit a complaint to suspend the payments.
"At that time I thought they were talking about $1000 a month - until the next week my eftpos card was declined and I found out they're taken another $1000. They're fully intending on taking $1000 a week. The child in question is now 25."
She has started trying to block the payments and had been told too much time had passed to take the issue to court.
A spokesperson for Inland Revenue said it could not comment on the specifics of her case but it had received extra funding for compliance so there was an increase in activity.
'We look at every case's individual circumstance and consider these before we take any deductions from people's account. We also contact or try to contact customers before taking these actions."
Another man who contacted RNZ said he too had money taken without warning. "We were not notified in advance nor did we know any money was owed. This tax was for my wife who does not have an IRD login and does not need to fill in an IR3 form. Her only income is superannuation and bank interest.
"Taking the money caused our account to go into debit, costing us still more. We are outraged that they did this without first asking us to pay whatever they thought was due."
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Christmas Eve busiest shopping day of the year with more than 500,000 sales
Busiest shopping day of the year
Peak time 12 noon-1 pm - 563,303 transactions
Per second peak - 167 transactions
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Number of sales beats Black Friday, but lowest Christmas Eve in six years
Christmas Eve has been the busiest shopping day of the year with 9,745 sales a minute at its peak.
Payments company Worldline says noon to 1pm saw 563,303 sales recorded on its network, down by about 7 percent on a year ago.
The company's network covers about three-quarters of the electronic terminals in operation.
Worldline did not have a dollar value for spending, but the peak number of transactions was the lowest for the past six years and well shy of the record 679,436 in 2019, before the pandemic.
Earlier this month it noted rising sales in the first three weeks of the month, but they remained 1.3 percent lower than 2024, with most parts of the country trailing the previous year's spending.
Official data from Stats NZ to the end of November showed a small rise in spending on the previous month, to 1.6 percent higher for the year.
Retail spending has been subdued as households have remained cautious because of high prices and a slow benefit from lower interest rates, and as well as concerns about the soft labour market.
However, recent surveys have shown improving consumer sentiment with ANZ bank's monthly report showing confidence at its highest level in four years.
Boxing Day is traditionally the country's favourite shopping day, but with Black Friday spending also softer this year the amount going through retailers' terminals may also be down on a year ago.
Adding a dampener to consumer spending may be the recent rises in longer term fixed mortgage rates because of higher wholesale rates.
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