Overview
On 12 & 13 June 2014, Inland Revenue, the Treasury and Victoria University hosted a conference: “Tax Administration for the 21st Century”.
The aim of the conference was to explore ways of making tax easier and reducing administration and compliance costs without sacrificing other tax policy objectives such as fairness and efficiency. The conference encouraged attendees to share ideas and start discussions on what tax administration for the 21st century could look like.
The conference brought together academics, business, tax advisors, and Government officials and covered a wide range of topics.
Click the above tabs for the agenda and presentations, and to view the conference footage.
Day 1 Agenda
8:00 – 8:30 |
Registration |
8:30 – 8:40 |
Introduction and welcome |
8:40 – 9:00 |
Business Transformation: a once in a generation opportunity |
9:00 – 10:00 |
Scene setting – what’s it all about |
10:00 – 10:30 |
Coffee break |
10:30 – 11:30 |
Compliance costs |
11:30 – 12:30 |
An international perspective on revenue administration |
12:30 – 1:15 |
Lunch |
1:15 – 2:15 |
What taxpayers want – hearing from different perspectives |
2:15 – 2:45 |
What Inland Revenue wants |
2:45 – 3:00 |
Coffee Break |
3:00 – 5:00 |
Possible reform models – blue skies session |
5:00 – 5:30 |
Open Discussion |
Day 2 Agenda
9:00 – 10:00 |
What motivates compliance? |
10:00 – 11:00 |
Penalties, enforcement and debt |
11:00 – 11:30 |
Coffee Break |
11:30 – 12:00 |
Technology’s role |
12:00 – 12:45 |
Going digital: the move to ‘e’ |
12:45 – 1:45 |
Lunch |
1:45 – 2:45 |
Interactions with social assistance |
2:45 – 3:00 |
Coffee Break |
3:00 – 4:00 |
The way forward for New Zealand |
Guest Speakers
Michael Keen
Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund
Michael Keen is Deputy Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund, where he was previously head of the Tax Policy and Tax Coordination divisions.
Chris Evans
Professor, School of Taxation and Business Law (incorporating Atax),
Australian School of Business
Chris is Professor of Taxation and former Head of the Australian School of Taxation (Atax) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. He specialises in comparative taxation, capital and wealth taxation, tax law and administration, tax policy and reform.
James Alm
Professor and Chair of Department of Economics, Tulane University
James currently teaches and researches in the area of public economics, in such areas as tax compliance, the tax treatment of the family, income reporting, fiscal federalism, and tax reform. He is currently Editor of Public Finance Review.
Hon Todd McClay
Minister of Revenue
Associate Minister of Tourism
MP for Rotorua
Hon McClay is the Member of Parliament for Rotorua. In June 2013 Mr McClay was appointed Minister of Revenue and Associate Health and following a Cabinet reshuffle this year, he retained the Revenue portfolio and was appointed Associate Minister of Tourism.
Naomi Ferguson
Commissioner and Chief Executive, Inland Revenue, New Zealand
Naomi took up her position of Commissioner and Chief Executive of Inland Revenue on 21 July 2012. Naomi is an experienced public sector executive with more than 20 years’ experience working in revenue agencies in the United Kingdom (UK) and New Zealand.
Robin Oliver
Director, OLIVERSHAW
Robin was Deputy Commissioner of Policy at Inland Revenue. He has also worked for the New Zealand Treasury in a variety of areas and as a private sector tax advisor. Robin was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours and is currently a partner at OLIVERSHAW, a tax consultancy.
Sue Chetwin
Chief Executive Officer, Consumer New Zealand
Sue joined Consumer in April 2007 after more than 25 years in print journalism. Sue was formerly the Editor of Sunday News, Sunday Star Times and the Herald on Sunday. Sue is a director of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, an alternate on the Electricity and Gas Complaints Commission and a member of the Electricity Authority Retail Advisory group.
Thomas Pippos
Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte New Zealand
Thomas is the Chief Executive of Deloitte. Previously he led Deloitte’s National Tax Practice for 13 years and has over 25 years’ experience as a tax professional. He has advised extensively on Tax Policy, International Tax, Mergers & Acquisitions and Tax Controversy. He has also led the provision of corporate tax advice to some of NZ largest corporates across multiple industries. Thomas is recognised as a leading tax advisor and his views are frequently sought by media on tax matters.
Paul Dunne
Managing Partner for Tax, KPMG New Zealand
Paul is a well-known tax professional with more than 24 years’ experience advising clients on tax issues. Paul works closely with Government and tax officials on various tax policy and operational matters. Paul is chair of the NZICA Tax Advisory Group and was a member of the Tax Working Group.
Geof Nightingale
Partner, PwC
Geof has been involved in advising clients in the energy, services, retail, property, forestry and Maori business sectors for quite some time. He has had a long involvement with Government, Inland Revenue and Treasury in tax policy development and was a member of the NZICA National Tax Committee for 11 years (its chair for 3) and a Tax Working Group member.
Stefan Korn
CEO, Creative HQ
Stefan is an investor, entrepreneur and CEO of Creative HQ, a publicly funded business incubator and accelerator in Wellington. In early 2014, Stefan and his team helped launch New Zealand’s first crowdsourcing competition in the public sector – Inland Revenue’s “APP4IR”. Stefan is a founding investor of New Zealand’s first digital accelerator programme “Lightning Lab” and serves on a number of boards of profit and not-for-profit organisations.
Therese Turner
Principal, Turner & Associates
Therese is a tax specialist whose practice involves the provisions of tax advisory and training services. She is the Independent Specialist Tax Advisor to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee, a co-author of Staples Tax Guide, and is a member of the adjunct faculty of the Open Polytechnic.
John Payne
Head of Tax, New Zealand Superannuation Fund
John is Head of Tax at the Governments $25b New Zealand Superannuation Fund and Convenor of the tax thought leadership group the Corporate Taxpayer Group. He is also a member of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue ‘s Business Transformation Reference Group. He has been at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund for 5 years.
Miriam Lips
Professor of e-Government, Victoria School of Business, Victoria University of Wellington
Miriam is the inaugural Professor of e-Government at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government, and the Programme Director of a new e-Government Master’s programme at Victoria University.
Lisa Marriott
Associate Professor, Victoria University
Lisa is an Associate Professor of Taxation at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Accounting and Commercial Law. Lisa’s research interests include taxation, comparative international accounting, and experimental approaches to taxation research. She has a particular interest in the behavioural impacts of taxation.
David Rea
Principal Analyst, Ministry of Social Development
David is a Principal Advisor in the Ministry of Social Development. He is also a Research Associate with the Institute for Policy and Governance Studies, and teaches a post graduate paper on Social Policy for the School of Government at Victoria University.
Jason Raven
Chief Policy Analyst, Welfare Reform, Ministry of Social Development
Jason is a policy advisor with the Ministry of Social Development. He works on a variety of social policy issues including benefit reform and the tax-welfare interface. He has worked on policy initiatives such as social housing, Working for Families and the design of a single core benefit.
Greg James
Deputy Commissioner, Change, Inland Revenue Department, New Zealand
Greg has a wealth of experience in transformation and change, successfully leading a number of large scale programmes. In addition to this, Greg has held executive roles at Fonterra as the Director Information Systems, Global Business Process and Global Procurement and as the acting CIO of Telecom Retail. Greg joined Inland Revenue in June 2013.
Arlene White
Deputy Commissioner, Service Delivery, Inland Revenue Department, New Zealand
Arlene has a wealth of experience as a senior leader in field operations and in the headquarters of the Canada Revenue Agency, where she was most recently Assistant Commissioner, Assessment and Benefit Services Branch.
David Carrigan
Policy Director, Inland Revenue Department, New Zealand
David has a wealth of experience in providing tax policy advice and over the past 17 years he has been involved in a wide variety of issues including the taxation of savings, personal tax cuts and a number of international tax issues. David has managed a number of tax budgets, and also the 2007 tax reform of investment – resulting in the new PIE and FDR rules.
Keith Taylor
Policy Manager, Inland Revenue Department, New Zealand
Keith is currently a Policy Manager for Inland Revenue. He has worked on a variety of tax administration matters over the years including designing the current rules around end of year square-up, tax penalties, PAYE and provisional tax.
Murray Shadbolt
Senior Policy Advisor, Policy and Strategy, Inland Revenue
Murray is a senior policy advisor at Inland Revenue working on social policy issues including the definition of family income. He has also worked in the Ministry of Social Development and the Treasury on a range of tax and social policy reform projects.
Please contact Nicole Hutchinson, Events Coordinator, Communications, Inland Revenue 04 890 1608
Tax Administration for the 21st Century Conference Working Papers
WP01/2014
Policy and Strategy, Inland Revenue. ‘Tax Administration for the 21st Century: A policy vision’.
WP02/2014
Evans, C., and Tran-Nam, B.,‘Tax Compliance Costs in New Zealand: An International Comparative Evaluation’.
Day 1 Conference Footage
Introduction and Welcome
Business Transformation: A once in a generation opportunity
Scene Setting – what it’s all about
Compliance costs
An international perspective on revenue administration
What taxpayers want – hearing from different perspectives
What Inland Revenue wants
Day 2 Conference Footage
What motivates compliance?
Penalties, enforcement and debt
Technology’s role
Going digital: the move to ‘e’
Interactions with social assistance
The way forward for New Zealand