On 31 August 2023, on its very last sitting day, the 53rd New Zealand parliament introduced the digital services tax (DST) bill. The controversial bill proposes applying a 3% tax on digital services revenue earned from New Zealand customers by large digital services companies.
Budget 2024 confirmed acautious approach to wait and see: “The current government is still to decide whether or how to progress the DST. The forecasts currently assume a 1 January 2025 implementation and include revenue of NZD 320 million.”
What this means is that the government will still need to decide whether to forge ahead with a DST, as revenue raised from the proposal remains booked into the accounts with effect as from 1 January 2025. This is optimistic given the number of steps still required to legislate and implement a new tax within the next seven months.
Source: taxathand.com
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
