Surpluses can be acquired from the pool whether you put tax into the pool or not. Surpluses can only be sold if they’ve been deposited into the pool initially.
Buy overpaid tax and save
If you’re faced with an underpayment you can acquire a tax surplus from our pool for a fee less than the Inland Revenue debit interest rate.
Your surplus tax is worth something
If you’ve overpaid tax let us sell it and get you a better deal. We make it easy to switch from your current provider. Talk to us before you sell to make sure you are getting the best deal.
Pay through us for better returns
More interest on surplus tax, faster refunds and covering missed non-income tax payments are just some of the benefits when you make deposits with us.
Get tax finance to suit your cash flow
Pay the interest up front and the provisional tax at a maturity date you select up to 12 months later.
HISTORY OF TAX POOLING
The challenge
When IR introduced the provisional tax regime, there were no penalties or interest costs if you paid late. So that’s what most people did. This prompted IR in 1987 to impose an interest rate regime that would encourage compliance. People were charged high interest rates when they underpaid or late paid, but only received low interest rates when they overpaid. The big criticism of this framework through the 1990s was that it made no distinction between the relative business risks of whether a taxpayer would actually pay, and the taxpayer’s compliance history.
New system (2003)
The challenge was that IR was not well placed to manage different interest rates for different taxpayers. They recognised that it was the private sector that was better able to provide and maintain this degree of flexibility, and so in response to this, IR introduced tax pooling: a public/private solution to a shared problem. IR wanted to retain the incentive structure of its interest regime but provide accommodation to compliant taxpayers. Meanwhile taxpayers wanted a less costly and more flexible means of complying with their obligations, and tax pooling intermediaries could provide that.
Tax pooling
IR put the framework in place for intermediaries such as Tax Traders to facilitate settlements between taxpayers. Taxpayers end up better off because they can obtain more interest on overpaid tax and have outstanding tax obligations satisfied at a lower cost than they otherwise could. Meanwhile IR is happy because outstanding tax debts are satisfied. Rather than refund old payments and receive new ones, they simply allow an existing payment to be applied elsewhere.
Relevant legislation
The relevant legislative provisions governing tax pooling can be found primarily in sections RP17 - RP21 of the Income Tax Act 2007, and sections 120OD, 120OE and sections 124S to 124X of the Tax Administration Act 1994. Additional references relating to imputation can also be found in sections OB and OP of the Income Tax Act 2007.
- Tax information bulletin 15/5 p 64-67; (PDF 532K)
- Tax information bulletin 16/1 p 71-78; (PDF 807K)
- The summary of 2009 legislative amendments
- The summary of 2011 legislative amendments
The operation of the tax pooling account is not subject to the Commissioner's oversight or audit and the Commissioner has no liability for any loss related to the tax pooling account.