Budget 2014

The Government’s 2014 Budget has been announced today and includes tax proposals aimed at further strengthening the tax system. The Budget includes proposals to:

- change the tax treatment of some business R&D costs which are currently not able to be offset against income for tax purposes,

- allow businesses to “cash-out” an amount of their tax losses arising from qualifying R&D expenditure,

- the repeal of cheque duty, and

- changes to the parental tax credit.

Also included in the Budget:

- extra funding was allocated to Inland Revenue to follow up on unfiled tax returns,

- freezing the Student Loan repayment threshold at its current level.

For more information, see the Budget 2014 announcements.

Budget 2014 tax announcements

15 May 2014

Budget 2014 continues the Government’s focus on further strengthening the tax system and improving public services to help provide an environment that supports business.

Today’s announcements include proposals to:

change the tax treatment of specific forms of business “black hole” expenditure and to cash out tax losses for research and development intensive start-up firms
- media statement - Two new tax measures to support business R&D
- fact sheet - Black hole R&D expenditure
- fact sheet - Cashing-out research and development tax losses
extend the parental tax credit
- media statement - Budget boosts parental tax credit for families
- fact sheet - Parental tax credit

repeal cheque duty
- media statement - Cheque duty to be abolished in July
- fact sheet - Repeal of cheque duty

Budget 2014 also contains a proposed change to the Student Loan Scheme to freeze the repayment threshold at its current level of $19,084. You can find details of the proposed change at www.minedu.govt.nz/.

Also included in the Budget is extra funding for Inland Revenue to follow up on unfiled tax returns.

Full coverage of all Budget 2014 announcements can be found at http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2014.