Watch out Friend!

Inland Revenue is using unprecedented powers they gained on the quiet during the Covid-19 pandemic to snoop around in Kiwis’ spending habits and family dynamics.

I’m writing to you today, first of all, to make sure you are even aware of this Government overreach and, secondly, to ask you to write to Minister Parker using our simple tool.

Minister for Revenue, David ‘Nosey’ Parker, used the pandemic as an opportunity to sneak through a law change ‘under urgency’ allowing IRD to put their stickybeaks into the spending habits and family dynamics of Kiwis. These creepy new powers avoided scrutiny by sneaking them in behind a bill that introduced the new 39% tax bracket. That meant zero public consultation and a speedy path through Parliament using Labour’s majority.

The Government has started its snooping with ‘high-net worth individuals’, but as we have seen over and over, if you give the Ardern Government an inch of power, they take a mile. Will your spending habits be rifled through next?

Friend, Kiwis are being compelled to tell the Government intimate details about what they spend their money on and the nature of their closest personal relationships. If they don’t comply, they risk hefty fines. This isn’t right.

How you spend your money is your business. You work hard and pay taxes and what you choose to do with what is left in your wallet after that is none of the Government's beeswax.

Join the fight against Nosey Parker and the brazen power grabbing by this Government. Tell Minister Parker this isn't on.

Why does Nosey Parker’s snooping project need to be stopped?

This IRD project makes a mockery of the principles of the Privacy Act and we have written to the Privacy Commissioner requesting a review.

There is no justification for trampling Kiwis’ privacy rights. Giving a Government department – the ‘tax man’ no less – the power to force Kiwis to cough up their financial records when they’re not even suspected of a crime is outrageous.

What makes the situation worse is how vague and evasive the Government have been about how the data will be used and who will have access to it.

We’ve only recently seen the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA) passed by this Government cause Kiwis’ spending habits to be trawled through to restrict borrowing. Does this Government have no respect for Kiwis’ privacy?

The most transparent Government ever?

It’s obvious the public weren’t meant to notice this bill speeding through Parliament. But even if you had known about this at the time, Minister Nosey Parker wasn’t interested in hearing your opinion. No public consultation, no expert submissions, no scrutiny.

You could be next

Nosey Parker might have started with probing the wealthy, but when have this Government ever been able to resist the temptation to expand their reach? 

They’d love to know how many cars you own, how many kids are dependent on you, and how often you travel overseas for holidays. Think of all the ways they could use that data!

We need to push back and you can join the resistance by sending an email to the nosey Minister and Government. Click here to use our easy email tool.

Unless we all stand up to the Government now, the IRD may soon be asking intrusive questions of all Kiwis and sharing that data as they see fit. 

The nosey parkers at IRD should have no right to know how much you spend on travel or helping out family.

Tell the Government that your spending habits and family dynamics are none of their business.

Regards,

David Farrar Co-founder New Zealand Taxpayers' Union