It's almost tax season: Will you get a refund?

Are you on track for a tax refund this year?

Inland Revenue now sends automatic tax assessments to people whose only income is salary, wages or investment income that is already taxed.

The department will start issuing income tax assessments from the last weekend in May and will continue into June and July.

People who spot information that is incorrect can ask for the details to be changed.

Who gets a bill?

Even if you've been earning income in a straightforward way, you could end up with a bill or a refund.

That can happen when your income has changed during the year, such as if you went to a new job or had some time off work between jobs.

Sometimes it can happen if income is not taxed correctly, or if you received credits that your income should not have meant you were entitled to, such as the independent earner tax credit.

IRD will write off tax to pay if it's less than $50.

If you get a bill you will have until February 7 next year to pay it.

What if you're due a refund?

If you have paid too much tax, Inland Revenue will pay your refund into the bank account it has on file for you.

This happens as the assessments are processed so it does not necessarily occur at the same time for everyone.

If you already have debt to Inland Revenue, you could find that the refund is used to pay that down.

How many people discover they've paid the wrong amount of tax?

Inland Revenue said in 2025, 3.63 million customers received end-of-year tax assessments automatically. Of those, 2.37 million received refunds and 342,00 had tax to pay.

Deloitte tax partner Robyn Walker said the assessment process was quite straightforward now.

But she said it would be important for people to consider whether they had other income that they should have included in their returns.

Inland Revenue has been warning that people who have made money on cryptocurrencies may have tax to pay on that.

"If someone is in an auto-calc process, they do still need to stop and think about whether that is the correct process and whether they actually have income from sources which don't have tax withheld at source. That would also capture people like landlords or self-employed people and anyone who has started a side hustle in the last year."

If you think you need to go through a more detailed process, you may need to request a tax return.

Watch out for scammers

Scammers sometimes take advantage of this time of year, pretending to be the tax department.

Inland Revenue says it will only ask people to log in to their myIR account from ird.govt.nz

It will also not put the dollar amount of a refund in an email or text message and will not as for your credit card or debit card details to pay.

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