Investment Income Reporting (May 2020 Update)
From 1 April 2020 the way in which Interest and Withholding Tax is reported to the IRD changed through the mandatory use of Investment Income Reporting (IIR). Whilst this has been available optionally since April 2019, it is now a requirement for all institutions paying interest where Withholding Tax is applicable.
The latest IRD requirements are supported from version 3.03.02 of finPOWER Connect.
IIR within finPOWER Connect comes in the form of a Report, and a File Export process. This provides the ability to export up to three file types, one for each supported Withholding Tax Type.
- Resident Withholding Tax on Interest (IPS)
- Non-Resident Withholding Tax (NRT)
- Approved Issuer Levy (AIL)
Overview
Prior to IIR, Finance Companies paying interest to investors were required to file an annual report, which detailed gross interest paid to the investor, and total Withholding Tax deducted. This is supported in finPOWER Connect via the generation and export of Tax Certificates. IIR means that instead of reporting annually, Finance Companies must report these figures monthly and via either a bulk file upload or API. finPOWER Connect only supports the bulk file upload; however the API may be considered in the future.
Tax Certificates are now obsolete and will no longer be required. It is likely that the option to generate and export Tax Certificates for NZ will be removed entirely in a future release of finPOWER Connect.
Reporting
A Report is available in the Report Explorer for Deposit Accounts; "Investment Income Report".
This report can be run in two ways:
- Using a Tax Period
- This allows you to report on previously finalised Tax Periods.
- This method will match an IIR export.
- Using an Entity and Date To combination.
- This allows you to report on a Tax Period not yet finalised.
- This is useful to review exceptions before closing a Tax Period.
- This is only indicative, as there is still a possibility that additional transactions will be written before the Tax Period is finalised.
The report is flexible, allowing the User to include / exclude certain columns and only include specific Withholding Tax types. Additionally there is flexibility to include / exclude valid and / or exception items for a more specific set of results.
Exceptions
The primary benefit of the report is to identify exceptions prior to committing the Tax Period. An account will be flagged as an exception if it meets one or more of the following criteria for the Tax Period:
- Total Gross Interest is less than total Withholding Tax.
- The "Main Account Owner", i.e. the first "Owner" Client in the Account Clients grid, does not have at least one of the following:
- Address
- Phone Number
- Email Address
If an Account has been flagged with an exception, the check box in the "Export" column will be unchecked (indicating that the record cannot be exported), and the exception detail will be listed in the "Message" column.
The IRD currently does not support exception records being included in their automated processes. Therefore it is recommended that any exception which cannot be corrected in finPOWER Connect prior to export is manually provided to the IRD and handled on a case-by-case basis.
File Export Process
"Investment Income Report Export" is available from the "Process" menu which allows for the export of the three Withholding Tax types.
File Export HTML Widget
An HTML Widget version of the File Export process is also available to be used within finPOWER Connect Desktop or finPOWER Connect Cloud. Whilst this performs fundamentally the same task as the form described above, it is biased to running from the web and therefore the User is presented with download buttons rather than a single "Export" button.
As illustrated in the example below, only applicable Tax Types will be available for download.
Clicking any of the download buttons will generate the export for that Withholding Tax type on the fly, and prompt the User to download.
Monthly Processing
Generally, the following process should be followed to satisfy IIR obligations.
- Run the "Investment Income Report".
- Run by Entity (i.e. no Tax Period at this stage) to the date the Tax Period is going to be closed at.
- Review any exceptions the report identifies, and correct where possible.
- Close the Tax Period using the existing process.
- Once closed, you will be prompted open the IIR Export wizard (step 4).
- Run the "Investment Income Report Export" process under the Process menu for the newly closed Tax Period.
- If there are any further exceptions encountered during the export, the User will be prompted to run the report again.
- The exported files should then be uploaded to IRD.
Useful Resources
IRD Reporting Requirements
More information on reporting requirements can be found on the IRD website here:
Testing
Generated IIR files can be test uploaded on the IRD website using the links below.