A New Low

I received an assessment this morning for my WFF tax credit for the next financial year. When I saw the new credit amount I first went "woohoo", then my next thought was no wonder the country is going bankrupt if this is how much I'm getting.

I then read further and saw that the error was in my income assessment. I know I work in Hospitality which is famous for crap salaries, but for some reason my income had been assessed at $34556 for the upcoming year. Fuk me, I pay the staff more than that!

I then settled in with book, laptop and phone ready to waste an hour of my life getting it sorted. It didn't take too long really as I've found a way to circumvent the tiresome phone robot and speak directly to a real person.

When I asked why my income had been assessed so low when their on screen records show what my current income is, I was told "we have to assess it as something then the client can contact us to correct it". When I queried that wouldn't it be logical to assess at a similar rate to the previous years income I was then told "we don't know if you have got a new job or not". I resisted the impulse to say that I'd have to a total dumb fuk to take a new job with such a hefty salary drop, instead just commented that "you must be getting a lot of phone calls then", to which the agent agreed.

I must say I find this whole thing quite alarming if this is a new trend in income assessment by the IRD. Not everyone who gets WFF is going to be astute enough to pick up the incorrect salary level and probably just think that the subsidies have been increased. If other peoples notifications have been as incorrect as mine I forsee a lot future problems for them when they have to pay back any overpayments made to them.

Sharpen up IRD.