O'Connor Greg; Woodhouse Michael; Andersen GinnyPart 5 Amendments to other ActsCHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members we come now to Part 5. This is a debate on clauses 49 to 52 Amendments to other Acts". The question is that Part 5 stand part.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Normally the parts amending other Acts are reasonably perfunctory and belts and braces but there is a particular clause in this part that troubles me greatly as a chartered accountant and a former Minister of Revenue and that is clause 52 Schedule 7 amended inserting new section 25B. This is an amendment to the Tax Administration Act. Now the Tax Administration Act sets out the very strict requirements for the collection of revenue on behalf of the Crown and the commissioner's powers and obligations in respect of among other things confidentiality and sensitive information. As a lapsed accountant I recall doing the tax returns would you believe for people who were on the wrong side of the law. It was pre - prostitution law reform and I would do tax returns for people in that industry and they were confident that they were able to fulfil their revenue obligations without anybody knowing the nature of their earnings and how they were gained. Section 18 says that a revenue officer must keep confidential all sensitive revenue information and must not disclose the information unless the disclosure is a permitted disclosure that meets the requirements of sections 18D to 18J which are obviously then laid out. As a former Minister not even the Minister gets to see that information. I remember asking for information as Minister of Immigration about non-payment of student loans for people who are overseas and the Commissioner of Inland Revenue said "Sorry Minister—can't have it". That obviously was because she was complying with the law. So we now have this amendment which says it doesn't matter about section 18 of the Tax Administration Act. Section 18 does not prevent the commissioner disclosing to the Registrar of Business Payment Practices information for the purposes of monitoring compliance with the requirements of the Business Payment Practices Act—this Act that we are passing. So for all of the things that we could provide in exception to section 18 of the Tax Administration Act this I would suggest is well down the list of reasons why we should breach that important confidentiality obligation on the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. So my questions are these: why do we need this power? What is the information that is being held by the IRD that is so important to the Registrar of Business Payment Practices that he or she would need to breach—well not breach but well yeah breach a longstanding convention on the sensitivity of revenue information? What is the sort of information that the registrar is seeking? Because clearly the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment have asked for this clause to be put in. Is it about payment timeliness for tax obligations? Is it about whether somebody files and pays their GST on time or their income tax or their PAYE? Is that appropriate in the circumstances given the very strong convention that we have had over a long period of time of the confidentially of the very sensitive information that Inland Revenue holds?Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister for Small Business): Thank you Madam Chair. To be clear: no one's personal tax information is being shared. All that is happening is that Inland Revenue will help the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to be able to identify which entities fall in scope of this regime. So these are New Zealand's largest corporate entities. Disclosures about corporate revenue are not as sensitive as disclosures about individual taxpayers' personal affairs as the member referred to in his personal experience. Through working with Inland Revenue to identify which reporting entities are in fact in the scope of this regime MBIE will be able to then notify them of their pending obligation to make disclosures. In essence it's to ensure that they are not unpleasantly surprised when the bill's transitional period comes to an end.So just to be clear: this clause is required to give IRD the authority they need to share that information."