Latest / Best of Business / Robyn Walker: Deloitte Tax Partner on businesses owing more than $1.4 billion in unpaid GST and PAYE

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Robyn Walker: Deloitte Tax Partner on businesses owing more than $1.4 billion in unpaid GST and PAYE · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think the job numbers don't sob you up?
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  Speaker 2: What about the money? Oh, to aid business is currently
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  Speaker 2: own more than one point four billion. This is GST
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  Speaker 2: and PAYE. That's from twenty five tax year. Do you
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  Speaker 2: know they're still owed forty eight million from twenty eighteen?
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  Speaker 2: Robin Walker tacks, partner at Deloitte. Of course back will
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  Speaker 2: this Robin, very good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Is this any worse than normal if you go back
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  Speaker 2: over years and decades?
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  Speaker 3: Uh, what's hard to tell from just looking at the
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  Speaker 3: reporting because they report on what's still outstanding from prior years.
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  Speaker 3: Do they understand like the actual level of debt is
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  Speaker 3: increasing if you look at year on year the amountlet's
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  Speaker 3: being left unpaid. So definitely a concerning trend.
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  Speaker 2: How much of this is COVID all that money that
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  Speaker 2: flushed out that we didn't think we'd ever pay back
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  Speaker 2: and as it turns out we're not well.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's that's when it all started to turn
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  Speaker 3: in terms of tax debt really taking off because there
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  Speaker 3: was a bit of a mandate to say be kind
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  Speaker 3: and and you know, give people some breathing space and
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  Speaker 3: actually give them some more money as there like a
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  Speaker 3: small business cash flow loan would be a bit weird
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  Speaker 3: to say, airedy, giving out a loan to them but
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  Speaker 3: then asking them to pay back their tax at the
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  Speaker 3: same time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, construction, I'm assuming is worse than most if you're
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  Speaker 2: breaking it down by sector.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly in absolute numbers. So there's almost a billion
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  Speaker 3: dollars of tax outstanding from construction. So hard to know
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  Speaker 3: how that sort of stacks up against the other industries
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  Speaker 3: because you don't have the details of how many taxpayers
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  Speaker 3: are in that cluster, but you're definitely an alarming sector.
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  Speaker 2: How do they handle this, I mean, how much is
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  Speaker 2: on the books as an ode that they think will
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  Speaker 2: be paid versus if you were, you know, having a
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  Speaker 2: quiet drink in a corner you go, you know you're
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  Speaker 2: never going to get that, don't you.
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  Speaker 3: They do have to do all this sort of assessment
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  Speaker 3: as part of their annual reporting. So of that one
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  Speaker 3: point four that's outstanding, they think that one point two
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  Speaker 3: is collectible. At one hundred and eighty five million is
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  Speaker 3: uncollectible already.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, And how much of that gets it on a
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  Speaker 2: payment system. When you come to me and so you
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  Speaker 2: are three hundred thousand dollars and I say I'll give
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  Speaker 2: you seventeen dollars a week.
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  Speaker 3: I think IOD has become a lot more proactive at
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  Speaker 3: contacting people as soon as possible to put them on
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  Speaker 3: payment plants. I think key thing is for anybody that
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  Speaker 3: does have any tax debt is get in contact with
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  Speaker 3: ID as soon as possible, because as soon as you
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  Speaker 3: pay it off, the sooner bad things will stop happening
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  Speaker 3: to you. So if you're not paying your tax, you're
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  Speaker 3: getting interest at ten point eight eight applied to all
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  Speaker 3: of that, you've got a five percent accumulative late payment
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  Speaker 3: penalty being applied. The problem is not actually going away.
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  Speaker 3: You need to pull your head out of the sand
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  Speaker 3: and face your problems.
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  Speaker 2: Good only Robin nice to talk to you as always.
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  Speaker 2: Sooner bad things we'll stop having, so bround things will
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  Speaker 2: stop happening to you.
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