IR215 Section C—All customers

If you agreed to a lower salary in exchange for private use of an employer-provided motor vehicle, Inland Revenue consider the amount of salary you would have received without this arrangement as income for student loan and WfFTC purposes. Include the amount exchanged at Question 11.

Don’t include the value if the use of the vehicle is just part of the job.

Example:

Erin’s employer offered her use of the work car and a $50,000 salary or a $58,000 salary and no private use of the work car. Erin chose to have use of the work car instead of the additional $8,000 salary, so she includes this as income for student loans and WfFTC.

If your employer provides a short-term charge facility, for example, a pre-loaded gift card, charge account or company credit card, Inland Revenue may consider the amount to be part of your income for student loans and WfFTC. It depends on the total value for the year.

You only need to tell Inland Revenue if the total amount of all cards, accounts and vouchers goes over the smaller of the following thresholds:

• $1,200 if your salary or wages are $24,000 or more

• 5% of your salary or wages if you earn less than $24,000 a year.

If above the threshold, you’ll also need to add the FBT your employer(s) pay on this benefit.

Enter the amount of:

• income attributed from a PIE that gives you ready access to your investment (for example, a cash PIE, on-call PIE, PIE term deposit), or

• dividends from listed PIEs, that you haven’t declared in your Individual tax return (IR3) or PTS.

Don’t include KiwiSaver or any other locked-in super funds.

Enter 50% of the amount of tax-exempt annuities from life insurance policies and/or a pension from a superannuation fund you received in the tax year. Don’t include NZ Super paid by Work and Income.

Retirement savings schemes

If you receive a distribution from a retirement savings scheme before you retire, you need to include it as part of your income for student loans and WfFTC if:

• retirement scheme contribution tax was withheld from the contributions to the scheme, and

• you weren’t eligible for NZ Super when you received the distribution.

Superannuation schemes

A distribution from a superannuation scheme is treated as income for student loans and WfFTC if:

• the distribution wasn’t from a KiwiSaver scheme or complying superannuation fund

• your employer made contributions in the tax year you received the distribution, or in either of the two previous years.

You’ll only need to include it if:

• the distribution wasn’t made because you retired, and

• you continued to work for the employer for at least one month after you received the distribution.

You don’t need to include any distribution of contributions that you made for either schemes.

If you receive NZ Super and a tax-exempt overseas pension, include the pension amount as an income adjustment.

You don’t need to tell Inland Revenue the amount of your overseas pension if you pay all your overseas pension to Work and Income and receive NZ Super in full.

If you receive salary or wages that are exempt from New Zealand income tax under specific international agreements, Inland Revenue treat this as income for student loans and WfFTC.

Go to the Inland Revenue website for a list of tax-exempt salary and wages.

If you’ve included income attributed from a PIE, that is a superannuation fund or a retirement savings scheme, in your IR3 return, you can exclude it from your income for student loans and WfFTC by entering the amount at Question 18.