Tax Information Bulletin - June 2026

The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025−26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Act 2026 received Royal assent on 30 March 2026. 

Determination DET 26/03 declares the Wellington severe weather event in April 2026 is an emergency event for the purposes of family scheme income.

This determination sets the deemed rate of return, used to calculate foreign investment fund income under the deemed rate of return calculation method, for the 2025-26 income year at 7.84%. The deemed rate of return set for the 2024-25 income year was 8.04%.

This determination establishes the national average market value (NAMV) of specified livestock for 2026.

The arrangement is a product Kiwibank offers to its customers. The product is marketed as the Kiwibank Offset Mortgage (the Product). The Product allows a customer to elect that interest payable by the customer on a loan made by Kiwibank should be calculated by offsetting the balance of the loan against the aggregate credit balances of certain eligible nominated bank accounts (hereafter referred to as credit accounts) held by either that customer or certain other eligible persons. Interest is payable on the net notional balance of these combined accounts.

This ruling does not consider the tax consequences of any arrangement under which a credit account holder agrees to offset his or her credit account balance against another person’s home loan account balance in return for valuable consideration.

This interpretation statement considers whether court-awarded costs and disbursements and out-of-court settlement payments for costs and disbursements are subject to GST.

This statement does not consider the GST treatment of court awards and out-of-court settlement payments more generally (eg, payments of damages). For more information on awards and payments made other than for costs and disbursements, see IS 23/07: GST – Court awards and out-of-court settlements.

This Commissioner’s statement sets out the Commissioner’s position and operational approach on the treatment of goods and services valued at $10,000 or less (excluding GST) that were acquired before GST registration and are used to make taxable supplies, on or following GST registration.

This question we’ve been asked (QWBA) explains how the FBT exclusion for benefits relating to health or safety applies.  This QWBA is relevant to employers who provide their employees with benefits as part of their duty to manage risks to health or safety in the workplace.  For the exclusion to apply, there must be a connection between the benefit and the employer’s duty to manage risks to health and safety under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.  This QWBA complements the General Article on the health and safety FBT exclusion (2018) by providing more detailed guidance.

This question we’ve been asked considers whether income derived from developing land, dividing it into lots and/or erecting buildings on the land for the purpose of sale is eligible income for a portfolio investment entity under s HM 12 of the Income Tax Act 2007. It concludes that this income is eligible income under s HM 12.

This item summarises a private ruling about whether a share cancellation payment was in lieu of a dividend under s CD 22 or was a dividend under s CD 4, whether the share-for-share exchange limitation in s CD 43 applied, and whether s BG 1 applied to vary these outcomes.

This item summarises a private ruling that considered an off-market share cancellation.

This item summarises a private ruling that considered the proposed amendment to a living trust deed and the later distribution of the trust’s assets to one of the specified beneficiaries when the last of the trustors dies.