The year has been busy with frequent changes to tax policy as the government implements policy changes signalled in last year’s election. The following major changes have been made.
01 July 2024 – the bright-line test applies only if the bright-line end date is within 2 years of the bright-line start date. This means that the test will apply to residential property purchased after 1 July 2022 only. Previous complications arising from the 10 year test implemented in 2021 have been removed.
01 August 2024 – personal income thresholds have increased, resulting in reducing personal taxes by up to a maximum of $1,042 per annum. To ensure that wage and salary earners are correctly taxed at source, additional tax bands have been added for the difference between the old threshold income limit and the new threshold for that tax rate. This should minimise the amount of any income tax washup for the 2025 tax year for those taxpayers on autocalc in the Inland Revenue system.
The Independent Earner Tax Credit (IETC) will be available to more taxpayers as the new threshold has been raised to $70,000 per annum income for the 2025 tax year (although the credit starts to abate above $66,000 per annum income)
01 October 2024 – Eligible parents and caregivers will be able to claim up to 25% of their weekly childcare fees up to a maximum of $975 commencing with the 1 July to 30 September quarter. Eligible taxpayers will need to register to claim Family Boost every 3 months and will have to provide invoices to Inland Revenue to support their childcare payments.
If you have any queries over tax or accounting issues, please get in touch with our office for further explanations.
