Upston Louise: Land Transfer Amendment Bill Tax Administration Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeUpston Louise: Land Transfer Amendment Bill Tax Administration Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 10 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6540. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information): I move That the Land Transfer Amendment Bill and the Tax Administration Amendment Bill be now read a third time. These bills were divided in the Committee stage from the Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill. These bills enable improved compliance with tax laws by allowing for the collection of information to ensure that people who buy and sell property for profit including overseas buyers and short-term speculators pay their fair share of tax. They are part of a suite of measures announced as part of Budget 2015 to bolster the tax rules on property transactions including those by overseas buyers and to help the Inland Revenue Department enforce them. Taken together these measures will help the Inland Revenue Department to enforce tax rules provide it with extra resources and ensure that property investors and speculators pay their fair share of tax whether they are from New Zealand or from overseas. Everyone here will agree that it is perfectly reasonable to expect that anyone who has an obligation to pay tax does so.The Land Transfer Amendment Bill supports the new brightline test set out in another bill currently before the House. The brightline test supplements the Inland Revenue Department’s current intentions test. Under this test gains from residential properties sold within 2 years of purchase will be taxed unless the property is the seller’s main home inherited from a deceased person’s estate or transferred as part of a relationship property settlement. The bill collects the information needed to support tax measures. It therefore rightly focuses on those who have or are likely to have tax obligations. Therefore the bill provides an exemption from the need to provide tax numbers when you are buying or selling your home. Those people are not speculators and they have no tax obligations so that information is not needed. There is no need for us to unfairly impact on New Zealand owner-occupiers who have worked hard and saved to buy a family home.The bill acknowledges that some of us own more than one property but only one of them can be the main home. To help people identify which is their main home in these circumstances the bill includes a greatest connection test. This test is drawn from case law and will be supported by advice and guidance. Although it is not a register of foreign property-owners it will help us better understand the residential property market and inform housing policy according.To better understand who is buying and selling houses in New Zealand the bill provides for the asking of two questions. First whether a buyer or seller or a member of their immediate family is a New Zealand citizen or holds either a resident work or student visa. The second question is whether or not they intend to live at the property being transferred.The Tax Administration Amendment Bill contains important measures to support New Zealand’s anti - money-laundering initiatives. To ensure that our anti - money-laundering rules apply to non-residents before they buy a property the bill requires offshore persons to provide a bank account number in order to get a New Zealand IRD number. Both bills will apply only to contracts entered into on or after 1 October 2015. The information will have to be provided after 1 April 2016 irrespective of when the contract was entered into. This means that it will apply only to new contracts that have gone unconditional after the commencement date of 1 October. It will give people time to comply with the requirements of this bill.New Zealanders have a right to know that everyone who should pay tax does pay tax. These bills will make sure that this happens. I commend these bills to the House.