The construction industry has emerged as a particular concern, the department said, with active Waikato construction businesses owing about $40m in PAYE.<\/p>\n
Morris said PAYE and GST were taxes collected on behalf of employees and customers and should not be treated as business cashflow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand cashflow can be challenging, and it can be tempting to hold on to tax for a short time. But it quickly becomes costly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holding on to PAYE could result in significant penalties and interest, and in some cases may amount to a criminal offence, he said.<\/p>\n
As part of a wider push to recover outstanding tax, IRD has stepped up debt collection activity. <\/p>\n
Measures include reporting more companies to credit agencies, making deductions directly from business bank accounts and pursuing liquidation where appropriate.<\/p>\n
The department has also been working directly with businesses across the Waikato, with local staff educating owners about their tax obligations and speaking with construction workers on site.<\/p>\n
Morris urged businesses facing financial pressure to seek help before tax debt became unmanageable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think you may miss a payment, contact us early so we can help you manage it. We want Waikato businesses to succeed; that is good for the region and for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
IRD said its Hamilton teams had been working alongside construction businesses and their tax agents to resolve significant debt.<\/p>\n
The figures come as the agency continues to expand its compliance activity across Waikato.<\/p>\n
More than 400 audits were completed in the region during the last financial year, uncovering more than $60m in undeclared tax.<\/p>\n
According to IRD, more than half of those audits identified tax issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur systems are getting better at identifying businesses where things do not look right, so we focus our audit work where there is a good likelihood of finding issues,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want to get in the way of businesses doing the right thing, but it is only fair that everyone pays the tax they are meant to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Waikato Herald has approached the Waikato Chamber of Commerce and Registered Master Builders for comment.<\/p>\n
Registered Master Builders said it did not want to comment.<\/p>\n
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The construction industry has emerged as a particular concern, the department said, with active Waikato construction businesses owing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[31987,118410,138,10166,26034,78,12620,1132,130,111,139,69,51386,7493,312,7496,131,2743,1524],"class_list":["post-550549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-31987","tag-400m","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-department","tag-in","tag-inland","tag-million","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-owe","tag-revenue","tag-says","tag-tax","tag-than","tag-unpaid","tag-waikato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}