Latest / Best of Business / Keith McLaughlin: Centrix Group Managing Director on the IRD's planned crackdown on stubborn debtors

Transcript

Keith McLaughlin: Centrix Group Managing Director on the IRD's planned crackdown on stubborn debtors · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news talks'd be follow
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: If you still owe the IID money, you might want
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  Speaker 2: to get on top of it because they're going to
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  Speaker 2: start reporting people who don't pay their taxes to Centrics,
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  Speaker 2: which means it's going to affect your credit rating. Keith
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  Speaker 2: McLaughlin is the managing director of Centrics and with US high. Keith,
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  Speaker 2: this is a great move, isn't it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it is, but I think I should point out
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  Speaker 3: that this does relate to company debt, not to personal debt,
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  Speaker 3: so at the stage the only parties affected are companies
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: But the impact of it is that it's more transparent
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  Speaker 2: and more honest, isn't it Because if a company is
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  Speaker 2: owing money to i ID and then turns up on
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  Speaker 2: your books, others will not lend to it as well.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's correct. Historically, if the text debts aren't disiplated
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  Speaker 3: on a credit report, then somebody does a credit report
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  Speaker 3: assumes that everything is fine, totally oblivious to the fact
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  Speaker 3: that there may be a significant debt o into the
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  Speaker 3: text department and could result in them advancing credit or
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  Speaker 3: providing goods and services and really being caught out.
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  Speaker 2: Keith, Australia already does this, why doesn't our ID do it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we started the process back in twenty seventeen and
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  Speaker 3: at that stage they did introduce the ability to load
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  Speaker 3: tax debt back in twenty seventeen, but it was a
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  Speaker 3: very cumbersome method and I think Australia really shortcut it.
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  Speaker 3: They dropped the process, made a lot easier to load
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  Speaker 3: their debts with a credit bureau. And I think having
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  Speaker 3: had another look at what they do in Australia, I
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  Speaker 3: think the New Zealand decided that there is room to
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  Speaker 3: improve the system here in New Zealand. And is it
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  Speaker 3: improved well, very much so. I mean we're now really
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  Speaker 3: starting to see the tax department moving a lot quicker.
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  Speaker 3: The tax leader is coming through to the bureau and
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  Speaker 3: it will make a significant change to business credit going forward,
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  Speaker 3: because that transparency will change the way that credit is
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  Speaker 3: provided to business Newelling.
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  Speaker 2: So these guys did a trial earlier this month on
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  Speaker 2: this right and they had thirty different outfits and they
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  Speaker 2: told those outfits, if you don't pay your taxes, you're
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  Speaker 2: going to going to get reported to centrics and they
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  Speaker 2: said it was successful, but they didn't say how many
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  Speaker 2: of them actually paid the taxes. Do you know the
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  Speaker 2: outcome of the trial?
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  Speaker 3: No, I don't. At the stage, we effectively load it
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  Speaker 3: and they're and part of the delay was setting up
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  Speaker 3: systems so that they can update us, because no point
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  Speaker 3: in just loading information onto the bureau and they're not
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  Speaker 3: maintaining or updating that data. So there's the process that
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  Speaker 3: we're going through at the moment. As part of that
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  Speaker 3: pilot is to make sure that it's not just dropped
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  Speaker 3: into the bureau and forgotten about. I mean, it's an
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  Speaker 3: obligation to keep it accurate, to keep it current, and
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  Speaker 3: that's the process we're working through at the moment. So, yes,
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  Speaker 3: they have started loading it, but we are still working
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  Speaker 3: through at the moment. There's still a reasonable menu limput
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  Speaker 3: and we're trying to get that as electronic as we can,
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  Speaker 3: so there's automatic updates come through from the text department
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  Speaker 3: into the Centric database.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, brilliant. Hey, thank you very much, Keith, appreciate your time.
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  Speaker 2: As always, Keep Aglocklin, Managing Director of Centrics.
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