What happens if you don’t pay IRD?

You are likely to have seen the recent news coverage about the arrest, at the airport, of Terry Seripisos when he arrived back in New Zealand after being overseas for a number of months.

It appears his arrest was for unpaid Child Support payments he was supposed to pay several years ago.

While most people may not like paying tax this is the main source of income for the government to pay for things like hospitals, schools and everything else the government does; we may not like or agree with some of the things they spend our tax money on but we still have an obligation to pay our fair share.

At Savage & Savage our job is to make sure you account for the correct amount of tax without paying too much or too little.

If you owe IRD money it is important (as Terry Seripisos found out) that you pay it. If you can’t afford to pay it when due you can enter into an arrangement with IRD to pay it off but they will most likely add interest and then if you don’t keep to the arrangement they will add penalties as well as compounding interest. The amount owing can compound very quickly into a large sum of money, often many times the amount of the original debt.

And as Terry Seripisos found out you can be arrested at IRD’s request if you owe the tax man money. IRD have more powers than the police when it comes to tax matters.