Nash Stuart: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6438. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): The purpose of thisis I suppose to ensure that we comply with a number of international anti - money-laundering pieces of legislation—the work that is going on around the world. We agree with that. However again what we see with this is just the adding of a whole lot of complexity that does not necessarily have to be there.The main concerns that were brought up around this sort of thing is how long it actually takes for the Commissioner of Inland Revenue and the Inland Revenue Department to allocate certain numbers—bank accounts and transfers and all that sort of carry-on. It is actually quite a complex process if you are an overseas investor. Well no the definition is not “overseas investor”; actually the definition is “offshore person”. This is where a little bit of confusion arises and I think that what you will find is that there will be some Kiwis who are a little perturbed to find that under legislation they are treated differently from New Zealanders who actually live in New Zealand. If we have a look at the definition—this is in clause 9(3)—“offshore person” actually means: “(a) … (i) a New Zealand citizen who is outside New Zealand and has not been in New Zealand within the last 3 years:”. This would apply I would suggest to nearly every single young Kiwi who has finished university has gone over to London or wherever and has done their OE. Who knows?Of course they have got bank account numbers here; most of them have got horrendous student loans and that sort of carry-on. But what they may find is that they have earned some money they have come back and they want to buy a house in New Zealand and this is not a hypothetical situation in any way shape or form. I would suggest that there are many people—probably all of us in this Chamber—who would know people in this situation; that is if we have not been in this situation ourselves. In fact I wonder whether when Mr Scott came back to New Zealand he was defined as an offshore person when he was going to buy his vineyard in Martinborough. Mr Scott had you been back within 3 years when you bought your vineyard? You might well have been described as “an offshore person” and a number of Kiwis actually are. We know this.What happens is that they go overseas they have got student loans they have not got much money they work incredibly hard—well maybe not for the first year but in the second third and fourth years they work incredibly hard—and they are on the internet the whole time looking to put roots down in this country. Actually about 3 weeks ago in my electorate office I was talking to a guy who came in because he wanted to get involved. He had just come back to New Zealand from overseas to settle down. So this is not a situation that is hypothetical. I think he or any Kiwi would find it a little perturbing to find that they are actually subject to different rules from New Zealand citizens especially when the only passport they hold is a New Zealand one. They are New Zealand citizens but according to this legislation they are also classed as “offshore persons”.So what the offshore person has to do is they have to give a tax number and a bank account number to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue—when we say “Commissioner” that stands for the Inland Revenue Department itself. But what it says here in new section 24BA “Offshore persons’ bank accounts and tax file numbers” is that “(1) The Commissioner must not allocate a tax file number”—so an IRD number—“in response to an offshore person’s request unless the Commissioner first receives a current bank account number for the offshore person.”The discussion around this that opened up in the Finance and Expenditure Committee was about timing and requirements. For example if a person wants to open a New Zealand bank account then they have got to have various forms of ID—and we have tightened this up quite significantly in this country which is good because we needed to. I think the world has done this as mentioned due to anti - tax avoidance measures around the world. But what a person has to do is provide a whole level of authorisations and identifications in order to get a bank account number but they cannot get a tax file number until they have got a bank account number.Often when you are looking at property there is the imperative of time and so if first of all an investor has to get a bank account number and then a tax number we do not know how long this will take. We have quizzed the Inland Revenue Department about this and it gave us assurances that it would not be onerous. It would get it done within a reasonable amount of time but it could not pinpoint down a certain number of days. So what we were really pushing the Inland Revenue Department for was to give us a number that the lawyers—