TalkTax

Received anonymously:

The Rewrite Advisory Panel (RAP) was established to advise rewriters of the Income Tax Act 1994. The Income Tax Act 2004 saw the RAP becoming the arbiter on possible unintended legislative changes and the Income Tax Act 2007 saw it becoming the overseer of the clarity of that Act (see: www.rewriteadvisory.govt.nz)

In 2009, a submitter raised with the RAP the definition of ‘revenue account property’ (the second RAP referred to in the title but, to avoid confusion, I do not use that acronym in this note). The submitter said:–

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Are you an international charity that has recently applied for listing on Schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act 2007?  Or do you have a client in this position?  If so, we would like to hear from you.

Very briefly, Schedule 32 status is afforded to a select few international charities, and with the lifting of the caps on donations credits and deductions, there has been a flood of applications to be listed.

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Mortgage “break fees” or “penalty interest” is a cost that has become more common place in the current economic times. With the recession starting to bite and with some taxpayers owing large sums to the banks on fixed loans with comparatively high interest rates, decisions about breaking the fixed-rate term to get lower rates have to be made. Invariably decisions like this come with a cost as banks want to be compensated for the loss of revenue that they would have received relative to the higher interest rate.

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