Business tax changes a “game changer”

Proposed changes to how businesses pay tax will remove a key pain point for most SME owners says accounting software developer MYOB.

MYOB’s comments follow the Government’s announcement of a Business Tax Package that will have the effect of making provisional taxation compliance a whole lot easier for hundreds of thousands of businesses in New Zealand.

“This will be a game changer for Kiwi businesses,” says MYOB General Manager SME Solutions James Scollay. 

“For many years MYOB has conducted research into what policies small business owners would most like to see addressed to help them succeed. In our most recent survey, simplification of provisional tax rules again came out as the policy most important to business owners.”

The latest MYOB Business Monitor research of more than 1,000 local SMEs, conducted for MYOB by Colmar Brunton, saw 83 percent of businesses identify “simplification of provisional tax rules and processes to make it easier for businesses to accurately determine and meet their tax obligations“ as the government policy most important to their operation.

For businesses, moving to a pay-as-you-go Accounting Income Method (AIM) will move tax from being an extra compliance process, to being part of the normal accountancy work a business already does to keep on top of its finances. It removes a lot of the tax uncertainty in having to estimate tax liabilities based on the previous year’s finances, and gives businesses a clearer understanding of the costs that are impacting their day-to-day operations.

“MYOB supported the IRD in the development of this policy to date and we look forward to continuing to work with them on it in the future. Advances in our ability to provide up-to-date information about cashflow and costs in a business means that we can start to build in these tools to make paying tax a whole lot easier.

“It’s great that the Government is focused on supporting small businesses. It has listened to the calls of owners around the country to modernise these tax rules and we look forward to working with the Minister of Revenue Michael Woodhouse and his officials to implement the proposals in due course.