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With New Zealand ranking as one of the most complex payroll environments in the world, it’s no wonder many Kiwi employers choose to offload payroll headaches to bookkeepers, accountants, or payroll intermediaries.

This trend is picking up steam: with Inland Revenue’s “Payday Filing” scheme kicking off 1 April 2019, instead of reporting PAYE to Inland Revenue on the 20th of the following month, you’ll need to report every payday (though some employers may have different situations and can choose otherwise).*

The bad news?  With anti-money laundering rules in effect, even getting someone else to do your payroll is about to get more complicated.

If we’re handling your payments to staff or Inland Revenue, we might need to get more information about your business and identity.

If you’ve got someone else handling these payments, like a bookkeeper or a payroll service provider, they might need to do the same thing.  If you can’t get into the office to meet with them, this might include tasks like getting a copy of your driver’s licence certified by a JP or lawyer. Good fun.

Now the good news!  Certain PAYE Intermediaries, like PaySauce, are exempt from the AML obligations.  They (and others like them) won’t need to badger you for identity verification or more info about your business.  PaySauce is also the first payroll intermediary up and running with Payday Filing.  (Note that some intermediaries are not exempt – it’s important to check).

If you’d like us (or whoever helps you with your payroll) to take care of payroll calculations so you don’t need to spend time becoming a holiday pay guru, we could migrate you onto a platform like PaySauce for the best of both worlds – payday filing and AML payroll headaches sorted.

* [IR Payday Filing – What You Need to Know | Knowledge | PaySauce]