The ODT reports on tax cheats:

$80m tax evaded, IRD says

Tax-dodging New Zealanders cheated the country out of at least $80 million tax on undeclared income last year.

The Inland Revenue Department has revealed it received about 177 tip-offs a week from disgruntled Kiwis about earnings being concealed.

Of the cases the IRD has been told about, the difference between what tax was reported and what the IRD calculated should have been paid reached $82.6 million in the year to June 30.

A lot of evaded tax is never recovered as often tax is evaded by people who have no money to pay it.

IRD’s group tax counsel, Graham Tubb:

“Persons in the community who are choosing not to pay their tax deliberately are creating a degree of burden on the rest of the taxpayers. There’s no question about that.

“What we don’t know is how many people aren’t paying their fair share and how much that is.”

Those who cheat on tax are cheating the rest of us, including those of us who pay our fair share of tax.

The cases covered a range of people, including trades people doing cash-in-hand jobs and people with funds overseas not declaring their bank deposit income.

The department had received 4608 tip-offs from the public over alleged tax evasion to June 30.

And that shows that some people are prepared to report the cheats.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said the 2012 Budget allocated the IRD an extra $78.4 million for the next four years to deal with the hidden economy, debt collection and unfiled returns.

And IRD is doing what it can to identify tax cheats and recover tax that has been evaded.