Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I want to challenge the Minister when he finishes this debate in the House to meet with the commissioner because the commissioner came before the Finance and Expenditure Committee and by my recollection of a question put by a member of the Opposition to the commissioner Was it a resourcing issue as to whether IRD were in a position to pay back this overpaid $40-odd million?" her response to us was that it was not a resourcing issue. In fact I think the next question posed by the National member at that committee was: "Was it the Government's call not to pay back the $40-odd million?" And the answer from the commissioner was that it was the Government's call. Now if that is the case then the explanation given by the Minister five or 10 minutes ago to this committee of the whole House is absolutely incorrect. I accept the Minister's earlier point that this is not a new issue but prior to the millions of dollars spent on the Business Transformation Programme IRD did not have the capability of identifying those who had overpaid their tax and the ability to pay back that overpaid tax but because of Business Transformation they have. They have the same technology that the Government and IR are going to now use to chase the 950000 people who have underpaid their portfolio investment entity because of an incorrect prescribed investor rate. So the Government and IR are in a position to chase those that have underpaid but they equally have the ability to track those who have overpaid and pay it back.This is nothing but a capricious tax grab by the Government and while the Minister says it's only a dollar a week to most of them—that is an outrageous statement by the Minister. I am also a former Associate Minister of Revenue and one of the things I say with pride is the way IRD has improved its communication its reputation with taxpayers right throughout New Zealand. It has been a remarkable transformation whilst I've been in this House and it's something like this that stands to damage the very image that IR has created. It's not because of the commissioner's call; it's because the Government's made the call that they won't give back $50-odd million that's been overpaid.I just think the Minister has a chance to fix it. Not often do you get a tax bill before this House where there is such an easy opportunity to fix what we know is wrong and all it takes is a bit of courage and gumption from a Government to use a Supplementary Order Paper that's been advanced by an Opposition member and this problem can be fixed. Andrew Bayly: Or just change the date in the bill. Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Change the date in the bill—there are solutions here in the committee of the whole House stage for the Government to do what's right. It'll chase the money that it's owed by those who have underpaid; why won't it give back the money to those that have overpaid their tax? Mr Nash started his contribution by saying "Nash has given back the tax". He pointed out I think it was $750 million that he's proudly—Andrew Bayly: No no only some of that.Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well some of it has been given back and Mr Nash was trying to claim credit for that then recognised we're not dealing with a lot of money—$40-45 million—but it's growing all the time Mr Nash. But I say to the Minister: do the right thing. It's not a new issue—we all accept that. There wasn't the ability to identify and set up a system within IR to do it before Business Transformation—that's been ticked off. All it requires now is a simple legislative change and that opportunity Mr Nash is before this committee as we speak. All it will require is a Minister and a Government wanting to do the right thing and burying its pride and accepting a Supplementary Order Paper that's been submitted by an Opposition National member. I challenge the Minister to do it."