With financial times so tough we are all trying to find a few extra dollars. Now one Queenstown business claims there is $500 million out there for the taking for those who have paid too much tax to the Inland Revenue Department.
Taxrefunds.co.nz boasts the first online tax return that is electronically connected to the IRD. It says a lot of kiwis do not realise that they can still do a personal tax return and that there could be a pleasant surprise in store if they do.
From his Queenstown base, founder Geoff Matthews says that in the six weeks since its launch, 77 percent of his clients have got money back. In total a million dollars that was overpaid to the IRD has been paid back.
"Every day we're getting people with large tax returns," Mr Matthews says. "One of them was $23,000 and every day there's $10,000 tax returns. Every day there's families with $10,000 tax returns, but the overall average is around $416 - and that's for three years worth of tax returns."
However Mr Matthews is convinced that there is still up to $100 million to be claimed - a figure he has extrapolated from IRD figures released to Parliament last year.
Mr Matthews believes that most people do not realise some of it could be theirs, either because they just don't know or they are too scared to find out.
In the 1990s, the government simplified the tax system so that wage and salary earners did not have to file a return. But since then, the nature of work has changed.
"We have more people working 10 months of the year, we have more seasonal workers, and we have more people who have cash bonuses who are working on commission sales, so the workforce has changed," Mr Matthews says. "And while the tax system is very accurate, those peaks are always going to get taxed at a higher rate."
Mr Matthews' website will give you a free estimate and if you are owed tax then they will file a return and take a 12.5 percent commission. However, he only charges that for the first $500 dollars and from then on it is all yours.