Nash Stuart: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7662. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): There are just a couple of things that I would like to talk about concerning a couple of clauses. One is clause 57 and this relates to an amendment to the Child Support Amendment Act 2013. This is quite important because what it says is—obviously 2013 legislation is rather new so to be amending it now is not ideal—that we replace a new section with this and this allows the commissioner to determine when he or she would write off penalties. And the replaced new section 135GA(1)(b) says: “the Commissioner is satisfied”—this is the ability to write off; they will not collect penalties—“that recovery of those penalties would do either or both of the following: (i) place the liable person in serious hardship …: (ii) involve an inefficient use of the Commissioner’s resources.”First of all let us have a look at the definition of “serious hardship” because it is defined in section 226C(5) of the Child Support Act 1991. And this is quite important—as MPs we will have dealt with constituents who are paying Child Support who believe that it is too high because of serious hardship. That is actually defined by the Act as the liable person’s “inability to meet minimum living expenses according to normal community standards”. And I wonder whether “minimum living expenses according to normal community standards” have actually changed between 1991 when this piece of legislation came forth and 2015 when we are dealing with it today.Another part is the cost of medical treatment for an illness or injury of the liable person or the liable person’s dependant. What we are saying here is that the commissioner may write off penalties if in fact the liable person has an illness or their wife or husband or partner has an illness that is incurring significant expense which I think is very fair. Or the other one is a serious illness suffered by the liable person or liable person’s dependant. And this is an interesting one because this debate has been in the news recently—so this is defined as “serious hardship” under the Child Support Act 1991 which is still relevant to the legislation we are talking about today: the cost of education for the liable person’s dependant. So if someone is having difficulty meeting the cost of their dependant then they are judged as being under serious hardship. And I wonder because we have heard about this recently—the case of New Plymouth Boys’ High School going very hard trying to collect donations from parents—whether in fact the inability to meet the cost of a donation to a school and I use “donation” in a very wide brief is actually classed as serious hardship.The other thing is of course that what is not included in “serious hardship” is the person’s ability to pay tax or financial support; or if they become bankrupt for example or if the liable person or liable person’s dependant’s social activities or entertainment may be limited which sounds pretty fair. There is no way that a taxpayer or a liable person should be able to claim hardship because they have not got enough money to go to the pub 3 nights a week. But the other one—and this is where I would not mind the Minister just perhaps providing a comment—is that as mentioned the commissioner is satisfied that the recovery of penalties would be harmful; that would “involve an inefficient use of the Commissioner’s resources”.We have heard that 97 percent of parents under the Inland Revenue Department scheme end up at some point in time coming under the penalty regime because they have missed a payment here or whatever. Now I just wonder what that limit is. Is it $200? Is it $2000? How much money does the Inland Revenue Department spend in collecting penalties? For every dollar it collects how much money does it spend? Where is that point? If it is after $100000 does it say it is going to go hard? Whereas if it is $20 or $200 does it decide to pull back? But the corollary of that and I have talked about this case earlier is that if a liable parent owes $100000—and this is not uncommon; it is a lot more common than we would think—would the Inland Revenue Department say that there is no point in going after this person because the only outcome is to send this person into bankruptcy? So I wonder what the definition of “inefficient use of the Commissioner’s resources” is?The other clause I would like to talk about is clause 23 of this bill. It repeals section 45 of the Child Support Act 1991. What section 45 did is it related to—and I actually thought it was not a bad idea—