Robertson Grant: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6439. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):I want to pick up this question of the way in which this particular part deals with the bank account.Jami-Lee Ross: Nashie—another 5 minutes?GRANT ROBERTSON: There will be plenty more opportunities for Mr Nash. We share and share alike over here Jami-Lee Ross. Actually what I would really like is for Jami-Lee Ross to get up and take a call and tell the House why it is that every single person who is purchasing a home in New Zealand now has to provide a bank account number when the Inland Revenue Department the people we rely on for the advice on this told us it was not necessary. That is what it said. In its regulatory impact statement this is what the Inland Revenue Department had to say. It said that the requirement to have a New Zealand bank account to obtain a New Zealand IRD number is unnecessary for individuals and of limited benefit as the Inland Revenue Department already has the power to require relevant identity verification upon application for an IRD number. That was the advice of the Inland Revenue Department.We heard before in Part 1 of this bill the deep concern of Government members about unnecessary complicating bureaucratic processes being put in place—it is a terrible thing to have to provide an IRD number that you have already got that you already use for a whole lot of other purposes. Government members are very worried about adding layers of bureaucracy and adding complexity but then they get advice from the Inland Revenue Department to tell them that it is completely unnecessary for people to have a bank account number and they ignore it. They are utterly confused.I actually honestly believe that members opposite do not really understand what has happened here. This was a rushed piece of legislation just as the Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill was a rushed piece of legislation and I just do not think they have got their heads around it. We had some pretty odd and interesting situations as amendments were proposed at various points in the process and the officials went away to see whether they could deal with them. It was a shambles and this Part 2 of the bill really is where the rubber hits the road in that regard.So let us be absolutely clear here. The Inland Revenue Department has said the provision of a bank account is completely unnecessary. In fact when people go to get an IRD number there does need to be identity verification but I would suggest that it is actually somewhat more rigorous than just opening a bank account. It is pretty clear that if someone offshore is going to purchase a property in New Zealand they will get a bank account. It will be the only thing it is used for—in order to get the IRD number. It will not actually be used for anything else. Perhaps unsurprisingly banks may not be too worried about that. There will be a little fee involved that will be of some use to them so they are not too worried about it. But actually it is completely unnecessary and completely bureaucratic.Again I want to refer as colleagues have already done to the submission of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. It made the same point that the Inland Revenue Department made in its submission—that there is no assumption that there will be any greater assurance achieved in this process by our looking to have to have a bank account number. It really does very very little in regard to that.The second point made by the Inland Revenue Department and indeed made by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand—and I will just quote the Inland Revenue Department here—is: “It is not apparent that for individuals the general anti-money laundering (AML) checks that a New Zealand financial institution would carry out would yield significantly more information than Inland Revenue collects as part of the current IRD number application process;”.So that is the process here. There is not actually any benefit but there is a significant additional burden of cost burden of complexity and burden of bureaucracy. We are not achieving anything by having the requirement for a bank account number.I simply ask members on the other side to consider what it is that they are doing here. On the one hand we have been told that this is not about a register and it is not about providing that information; it is about making sure that people are paying the right amount of tax as Louise Upston said. That is actually another bill; it is not this bill. In this bill it is about getting data. So on the one hand we are now not getting the comprehensive data that we should get because we are exempting the main home but on the other hand we are in fact through this legislation placing an unnecessary burden on people in terms of providing a bank account number.I want to hear from members of the Government as to why it is that they are imposing this when the Inland Revenue Department told them not to and when the chartered accountants told them not to. What do they know that those people do not? Because it is not clear to me.