This omnibus bill sets the annual income tax rates for the 2024-25 tax year and makes a range of changes to tax administration, the GST regime, KiwiSaver, and Inland Revenue-administered social policy rules, including remedial amendments. It establishes a standing set of tax measures that can be activated in response to emergency events.
Parliament advanced this bill under urgency (committee of whole house, third reading) — moving it through faster than usual, with less time than normal for public submissions.
These are claims MPs made in Parliament’s debate — not verified facts.
This omnibus tax bill sets the income tax rates for the 2024–25 year and makes a wide range of changes to how tax is administered. Its headline “emergency response” feature lets the government switch on targeted tax relief quickly by Order in Council during a future declared emergency — for example easing fringe benefit tax or suspending certain property rules — instead of passing fresh legislation each time, as happened after Cyclone Gabrielle. It also lifts employee share scheme thresholds, simplifies GST for some financial services, tightens certain investment-entity rules, and introduces crypto-asset reporting.
As a standard annual tax vehicle, it packages Inland Revenue’s yearly rate-setting with numerous remedial and policy tweaks. The argument for is efficiency and preparedness: pre-authorising emergency tax relief means help can reach affected people and businesses faster after a disaster, without waiting for Parliament. The argument against is that delegating tax-relief decisions to Cabinet through Orders in Council reduces the direct parliamentary scrutiny that normally applies to changes in tax.
See the Parliament.nz ↗ site for the full bill.