Waikato Business News May/June 2017

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24 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS May/June 2017 Passion for photos Once upon a time in the early twentieth century a business was born. It was to metamorphose through the changes and chances of a fast-evolving tech world. That business is known today as Snapshot. Snapshot is really a photographic experiential journey from beginning to end. Each person is the centre of the interaction with the Snapshot crew. The client calls the shots and from that time on, every step is designed to move the customer’s agenda in their own unique direction. To make this a quality experience Snapshot offers one on one lessons for people who buy cameras from them and it also offers them to people who don’t. Everyone can learn to take the best photos you can. If it’s off your phone then you too can preserve the special moments. Precious old photos can be digitised. When photos are lost, or ruined by natural disasters and storms, or digital photos lost due to mistakes or technical issues, people realise that their memories are priceless and must be safeguarded and preserved. You need a memory evangelist to help you do this - a business like Snapshot which is passionate about helping you capture the best memories you can and to save these from disasters for future generations to enjoy. Snapshot has owners and staff who care about helping people, who enthuse you, the customer, to keep on the path and create pictures that will last for aeons. A very long time. The Boswell family who runs this operation love to do their work, they have loved doing it for generations and this passion shows itself in the attention to every step in the journey that you take. And people return to that again and again because it’s a rare commodity in this world. They are authentic. Their products are diverse, their service is real, which has earned Snapshot a solid reputation. Simply put, it’s better than all the rest. When you meet Graham, Jill and the team you will take a traditional yet wonderfully modern journey, you’ll be converted to the Snapshot way. In one sense, you could call them the memory evangelists. You’ll love the experience, it’s the happily ever after way to go. 1940s 1960s 1980s 2008 Mid 2000s 1930s 1950s 1970s Early 1990s Early 2000s 2017 391 Victoria St, Hamilton we’re your MEMORY EVANGELISTS see how @ .co.nz
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS May/June 2017 25 Changes to PAYE should be welcomed As part of its initiative to modernise the tax system, Inland Revenue (IRD) has released a draft bill to reform the PAYE system, aiming to reduce tax compliance and administrative costs for New Zealand businesses. The proposed changes take advantage of modern digital systems and are likely to be welcomed by both employers and employees as they should lower employer compliance costs and improve the accuracy of deductions for employees. Alongside the PAYE changes, the draft bill includes provisions to increase the amount of information received by IRD about investment income paid to individual taxpayers. While this may be welcome by some, others may feel uncomfortable about the increased amount of information in IRD’s hands. PAYE changes The first considerable change that the Bill seeks to implement is shifting the employer’s current obligation to provide IRD with employee income and deduction information on a monthly basis, to an obligation that occurs every payday; this could commonly be weekly or bi-monthly for some employees. The Bill envisions that accounting software will be in- tegrated with the IRD so that employee income and deduction information would be sent to IRD with a simple ‘push of a button’. In effect this means that PAYE information will be sent to IRD as pay checks are processed, so the reporting should become an integral part of the payroll process rather than a separate and additional activity. This will reduce the tax administration involved with employing staff and ease the compliance burden for businesses. The other big change is with regard to new and departing employees. At the moment, when an employee starts a new job they are generally required to complete paper forms for the IRD, which commonly overlaps with information collected by the employer, resulting in a substantial amount of repetition and duplication. Under the new system, the employer will be responsible for collating all of the relevant information, which can then be submitted electronically to IRD with the next return of payday information. Providing this is done before the new employee is paid, IRD will check the IRD number and proposed tax code, and communicate back to the employer in near-real time if any changes need to be made or if any other deductions such as child support need to be processed. This aims to reduce the scope for initial errors that are commonly experienced with new employees, such as incorrect tax rates being used or insufficient deductions being made. Meaning employees have a greater chance of receiving the correct amount into their bank account. Practically speaking, both of these changes will streamline the PAYE process for employees by making tax obligations part of the routine payroll process, which should reduce compliance and administrative costs for businesses. Investment income information In addition to the PAYE changes, the draft Bill proposes the more detailed and frequent collection of information about taxpayers’ income; including interest, dividends, portfolio investment entity (PIE) income, taxable Māori authority distributions and royalties. At the moment, payers of interest subject to withholding tax (such as banks) are required to provide detailed information about individual taxpayers to IRD, but only after the end of the tax year. Other payers of investment income, such as funds paying dividends and Maori authorities paying distributions, do not have to provide any information at all to IRD about amounts paid to individual taxpayers. The proposed new rules will require detailed information about investment income to be submitted to IRD on a monthly basis, or whenever payments are made if the payment frequency is less than a month. The information provided to IRD will include the name, IRD number and contact details of both the payer and recipient of investment income, along with the recipient’s tax rate and the amount and type of income paid. The aim of IRD receiving more frequent information in this way is to help give them a more complete picture about individual taxpayers total income on a real-time basis, to TAXATION AND THE LAW > BY HAYDEN FARROW Hayden Farrow is a PwC Executive Director based in the Waikato office. Email: hayden.d.farrow@nz.pwc.com ensure individual’s tax and social policy obligations and entitlements are more accurate during the year. For example, the IR will be able to ensure that entitlements to ‘Working for Families tax credits’ take into account any investment income, so that individuals are not overpaid throughout the year. It will also ensure that taxpayers are returning this investment income. IRD will also be in a position to advise the taxpayer of the appropriate withholding rate to use, as well as pre-populating tax returns for the taxpayer at year-end. The pre-population will be a welcome change for most individual filers; it will quicken and simplify the e-filing task and will help individuals get their tax position correct. However these proposed new rules provide IRD with access to more information on individual’s personal finances, which may make some feel uncomfortable. The IR have estimated that an additional $21 – $27 million of income tax per annum will be collected under the new rules and an additional 185,000 individuals will be required to include their interest income when calculating their Working for Families entitlements. In summary, the Bill aims to use digital solutions to simplify the tax administration process. Both the PAYE changes and introduction of investment income reporting seek to give IRD more real-time information. Both of these changes will ultimately give Government greater insight of individual taxpayers overall financial positions, which may open up opportunities to redesign social policies and improve the future administration of other systems such as child support, KiwiSaver, Working for Families and student loans. All references to Bill refer to Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017–18, Employment and Investment Income, and Remedial Matters) Bill unless otherwise stated. Waikato farmers launch innovative health and safety app Waikato farmers have developed an innovative app that aims help them meet their health and safety obligations and streamline communication to those who come to farm. Husband and wife Horsham Downs dairy farmers Megan Owen and Jason Ham teamed up with Hamilton-based tech company Bridge Point to create the cloud-based app Orange Cross, which launched in late 2016. Orange Cross will be showcased at the Innovation Centre at Fieldays from June 14-17. “Orange Cross was born from a belief that New Zealand farmers already do things to keep their staff and themselves safe and healthy,” said Owen. “Traditionally farmers haven’t been that good at documenting what they do. There is a reluctance to record what is known as ‘common sense’. Documentation has been an afterthought.” The idea for the app came about after getting frustrated with paper that was never in the right place at the right time and the apparent need for annual transmission of masses of paper that was ignored. “Our target user is the guy in the paddock who is managing a farm,” said Megan. “They don’t want to spend hours on a PC, but they know they need to manage risk. “We take the manual that sat in the corner of the office – pristine in its cobwebs – and put it into the hands of those most likely to be able to make a difference – the people in the field.” The couple worked with Ben Wilson of Bridge Point on the app. Orange Cross allows the sharing of induction information simply. The Orange Cross team helps farmers set up their farm and they have access to templates that can be adapted to different farming systems. Once a contractor or staff member is inducted, they can access that farm’s risk register, raise incidents and help the farm owner fine-tune their health and safety systems and processes over time. Someone receiving Orange Cross information from a farmer can set up their own free version of the app. Similarly contractors sharing their risk profile allow their farming clients to have a free version which gives users access to 80 percent of the app’s capabilities. The full version unlocks other aspects such as exporting, reporting, and sharing information with staff and contractors. “Those inducted to a farm have access to a farm map and risk register that can be searched as well as a comprehensive contact list,” said Megan. “The risk register covers what to do to keep safe and allows users to report things that are going on. “A visitor to the farm can search for drains or the cow shed and see all risks that have been identified there. “Sometimes people come to the farm to work in one area and end up in another – so they can search relevant details.” The paid version of Orange Cross is charged out on a per farm model, not per staff member, ensuring it remains cost effective. Megan said while the app is easy to use, it has to be used to be effective. “Not using the app is like having an unopened toothbrush in a packet. If it sits on a shelf for six months and isn’t used, you can’t then complain to the dentist when you need fillings.” She said Orange Cross users were documenting more because the app was so easy to use. Farmers have full control of who has their information; when staff leave their access is revoked and, similarly, contractors can have their access revoked. Waikato contractor Aaron Smith-Hall has been using Orange Cross for about six months and recently saw how valuable it is to his business. “We recently had an incident that involved fire trucks and insurance people,” Aaron said. “Being able to immediately show our documented processes, control plans and, at the push of a button, get a hard copy for insurance people was one of the few highlights of a stressful couple of days. Jason Ham and Megan Owen. “We were thrilled that Orange Cross made this part of the process so easy and it was a reminder to us to always keep things updated. We can now because we always have our phones with us – and I was never that great at paper work in the first place.”
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Waikato Business News May/June 2017

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