Watts Simon; Parker DavidSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I thank the Minister for that response and context in terms of that so I appreciate that. I want to move now to clause 169 which is part of Part 4 of the Act which is in regards to section 183ABAB—amending Remission of interest for taxpayers affected by COVID-19: general rules"—and that broadens out to clause 169B which talks about some of the implications around the timing around that remission element. I guess why this is important in this context is—and the Minister will no doubt be aware of some of the conversations and ideas that National put up in regards to loss carry-back and the implications on businesses of losses that were incurred as a result of COVID-19; losses that were primarily outside of the control of businesses—they're just the reality of having to operate under the impact of COVID-19 which for many businesses and particularly in hospitality and parts of retail and travel have been absolutely catastrophic. What I'm interested in really in regards to clause 169 is in terms of the extent of that remission of interest process and in terms of the thinking around whether that is as far and as much as we could have gone in regards to providing support for those individuals. We had a number of individuals—I guess a circumstance in which you would have to be paying interest is potentially around the inability to meet your requirements under terminal tax obligations. And I'm in no doubt—due to cash flow issues and the fact that many businesses have actually sucked up all of their working capital as a result of trying to manage under COVID—cash is tight and tax is probably one of those last things. I know there has been some consideration around the deferral of the timing of those tax payments which I think would have been helpful. At the end of the day cash is cash and you've got to find it from somewhere. So I'm interested in terms of some of the consideration around that. Will that and in the view of the Minister actually make a material impact or a material difference in regards to the benefit or the relief that that will provide on our business community? Also in regards to the timing around that whether there was any consideration around—I won't go into whether there's consideration going forward but in the context that I was referring to before around loss carry-back looking back on prior periods as well and potentially in circumstances where individuals have incurred interest on terminal tax in prior periods and whether there was any consideration around whether benefit could be afforded to certain businesses potentially in a targeted manner. Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Thank you. My understanding is that the Commissioner of Inland Revenue and the people who conduct the affairs of the department on her behalf already have had discretions to waive penalties. They didn't have the discretion to waive use-of-money interest and the Government thought that in the context of COVID it was appropriate to extend the discretion of the revenue department to waive interest. There does need to be some incentive to pay tax on time—it would be unwise to give everyone a waiver of interest even if they didn't need it—so there is an obligation for this to be done on an individual basis by people applying to the department for the exercise of that discretion which is being widely used at the moment. The department's not being niggardly about this; they are using their discretion quite frequently to give people time to pay their taxes and waiving interest in that regard. Indeed the extension of these powers has actually been recently triggered by another Order in Council if I remember correctly which went through Cabinet very recently. In terms of whether that is applied retrospectively to earlier interest debts I can check for the member with officials on that. I anticipate that certainly if it was backdated it wouldn't be backdated before COVID but I'm not sure whether you can only apply prospectively or in respect of a period prior to your date of application. I'll check with officials on that issue and get back to the House."