Earthquake tax treatment bill tabled

A bill tabled in Parliament today will provide real and practical help through the tax system to the people of Canterbury, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said.

“Much has been said and written about the February earthquake. This bill represents concrete action to provide help that is both useful and practical” he said.

Mr Dunne said that the Taxation (Canterbury Earthquake Measures) Bill focused on the tax treatment of a range of situations where people could be negatively affected by current tax law.

“This is because current law was never designed to cope with disasters of the scale of the February earthquake” Mr Dunne said.

The main features of the bill include an exemption so businesses would not have to pay tax and gift duty on trading stock they had donated up to 31 March 2012 for relief from the effects of both Canterbury earthquakes.

Also exempted from tax would be certain welfare contributions provided by employers, within eight weeks of either the September or the February earthquakes.

The other two matters in the Bill extend the redundancy tax credit to 30 September 2011, and provide the Commissioner of Inland Revenue with the power in emergency situations to exclude certain income from counting for some benefit abatement purposes.

The measures tabled today were first announced in March and Mr Dunne said he was confident that they would be well-received given the positive feedback they had received at that time.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants has congratulated the Government on moving quickly to alleviate some of the concerns from Christchurch.

Further earthquake related depreciation tax law changes are to be proposed later this year.

Detailed information on the proposed changes is contained in fact sheets on the Inland Revenue Department’s policy website at www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz