Tax Updates: 17 November 2025

Welcome to this week’s review of tax issues where Richard comments on what’s been happening in the world of tax over the past week. If you have a question or would like a second opinion on any national or international tax issues, please contact Richard via email at richard@gilshep.co.nz.

Updated Public Guidance work programme

Having just returned from an overseas conference and still trying to figure out what day of the week it is, I’ve decided to keep this weeks update as brief as possible, by selecting the easiest thing to talk about—Inland Revenue’s (IR) latest update to their Public Guidance work programme, which you can access yourself directly via the Tax Technical website.

When I consider what IR are currently working on internally, the following topics get me excited (in a way that only those of you interested in tax will ever understand):

• GST—Concurrent use of land: it will be interesting to see IR’s commentary on when concurrent use may be deemed to come to an end, which could then trigger output tax liabilities for an asset perhaps now seen to be used solely for non-taxable purposes, like residential accommodation in a dwelling, for example;

• GST—short stay accommodation: I often experience clients thinking that unless the accommodation which they supply is commercial, then any supply of residential accommodation is automatically an exempt supply. What is overlooked, however, is whether the supply is in a dwelling (a defined term), which is actually the differentiator between a taxable and an exempt supply;

• Income tax—cash incentives for banking customers: such incentives are commonplace now in such a competitive lending environment, so it would be good to have some clear guidance on the issue;

• Income tax—Trusts—interest deductibility: absence of the automatic deduction for interest costs for a company, other taxpayers like trusts, usually need to satisfy the general permission to qualify for a deduction—so any guidance out of the Revenue as to when the requisite nexus test could be satisfied is useful food for thought in my opinion; and,

• Income tax—When is a trustee a bare trustee: I still see a lot of confusion in this area, and the relationship can be one of great value in certain situations. So again, any guidance from the Revenue to assist in ensuring that our client’s claims of bare trustee relationships will be robust and likely to be accepted by the Commissioner’s underlings is very useful in my world.

Right, that’s it, off to have another coffee….

This article was originally published through the ‘A Week In Review’ newsletter. If you would like to receive Richard’s tax updates every Monday morning, you can subscribe here.