Retrospective Tax Enforcement Again: IRD & Accommodation Allowances

As I explained in this post, regarding how retrospective law enforcement belongs to dictatorial tyrannies, not Western social democracies – though apparently also in social(alist) democracies - IRD in New Zealand are now routinely imposing retrospective enforcement on a populace with no ability to fight them. And I say no ability to fight them because what can an individual do against a department already operating outside the rule of law; especially when issues like this are put to the Minister, as I did on Twitter last night - and he's being alerted to this post – but like Nero he simply just ignores anything that doesn’t suit him in the ruthless pragmatism of turning his department into a juggernaut concerned with obtaining maximum money from the taxpayer, regardless of the law, to feed a State that continues to spend irresponsibly. I’ve already written on how this Minister has his head stuck so far up the politick, his refusal to sign up to even the symbolism of a government spending cap is a demonstration of an inappropriate focus only on building the power of an abusive state, and not on who that state is supposed to be there for: to protect the liberty of the individual citizen. And that this and successive governments are evil – used in a secular sense – because they have been ignorant of the classical liberal ethic and rule of law the free West was founded on, and thus have unwittingly, to put the best case on this, used the arsenal of the Fortress of Legislation, to destroy the decent society. We are so badly served by our politicians, not one of whom seems to have done a history lesson.

Yesterday the Commissioner of IRD announced a change to the treatment of accommodation allowances: you don't need to know how this issue works, just that the new interpretation is to be retrospectively enforced over the last two years:

[IRD] claims also that while the ruling may appear to be new, such accommodation payments should have been treated as income and attracted PAYE tax payments for some years. Taxpayers who thought they had treated such payments incorrectly are being urged to make voluntary declarations.

"In many cases those making a voluntary disclosure will only be required to account for PAYE over the previous two years, and they will not be subject to use of money interest or shortfall penalties," Mr Tubb says.

KPMG's Taxmail succinctly sums up the problems:

The IRD’s position is contrary to common practice, including its own previous statements, and seems to be trying to rewrite history. The technical reasoning adopted in the Statement is unclear and elements of the interpretation are inconsistent. We are not convinced IRD has this right from either a technical or policy point of view.

 

And let it be known, when our liberty and freedom were being destroyed, according to his tweets, our Minister was only concerned with what is happening to the tabloid press in the UK. Not good enough. In some small part only, this blog registers the absolute disappointment and anger of that small but vital part of the citizenry that has a clue - if the moronic meme of the 1% applies to anything, I suspect only to that anymore.

Now, with anger on 100%, I have to move from a Minister who may well end up advocating torturing dogs so the 99% can deaden the pain of our social(alist) democracy with party pills, to my neighbour who I have little doubt uses the damned things, and has, after so much effort and aggro from this household to improve the lot of their poor wee dog, reverted yet again into a dog concentration camp. I'm pretty much over life circa 2012 at the moment.