About public consultation
Inland Revenue produces a number of statements and rulings to explain to taxpayers and their agents how taxation laws affect them. These are produced by the Tax Counsel Office (TCO) and Legal and Technical Services business groups of Inland Revenue. We are keen to produce items that accurately and fairly reflect taxation legislation and are useful to taxpayers and their advisors. Your feedback, as a user of that legislation, is highly valued.
You can have your say by providing us with comment on the technical and/or commercial aspects of the drafts. We will acknowledge receipt of your comments immediately, and reply in more detail to you before the item is finalised.
You can view and download current draft consultation items until the comment deadline. New drafts will be added as they become available.
Two kinds of public consultation
For consultation on IR's interpretation of current tax law, this is the right place.
For consultation on the Government's and officials' proposed changes to tax law, see the IR Tax Policy website.
How consultation works
| Step | Description | Result |
| Plan the year | Each year, we decide which publications are most important to our tax audience and schedule them in our work programmes. | Work programme |
| Write the document | We draft a document and review / revise it internally. | |
| Send for consultation | We send out the document as a draft item for your technical/commercial feedback, announcing it on our website and in various email lists and the TIB. If you respond, we acknowledge your comments immediately, and reply in more detail to you before the item is finalised. |
Draft items |
| Revise the document | Once consultation has closed, we reconsider the views set out in the draft item. The draft item then ceases to represent the Commissioner's view and may not be relied on by taxation officers, taxpayers and practitioners. For more information on the status of expired draft items no longer available on this site, please see our work programmes. |
Expired items |
| Publish final document | We publish the finalised item on this website, where you can browse or search for it. We also announce it on the home page and through various email lists and the TIB. | Latest publications |
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Go to our subscription service to find out how to receive updates.
Privacy of submissions
Submissions on our consultation items may be the subject of a request under the Official Information Act 1982, which may result in their release. Parts of submissions may also be summarised or quoted in official documents, which may be subject to a request for public release.
The withholding of particular submissions, or parts thereof, on the grounds of privacy, or commercial sensitivity, or for any other reason, will be determined in accordance with that Act. Authors making submissions who consider that there is any part of the submission that should be properly withheld under the Act should clearly indicate this.