For those of you who think Secondary tax penalises you, go to the ird website, signup and file a tax return. If you have been paying secondary tax, it is highly likely the IRD will give you some money back, this could be quite a lot. They have to charge a secondary tax as your second employer won’t know what you earn with your other job, it is a lot better to get money back at the end of the year, than be lumped with a massive tax bill instead.

Link for your information:
http://www.ird.govt.nz/online-services/service-name/services-i/online-ir3-2016.html?id=homepage

PS, don’t sign up to the likes of woohoo tax returns, they are a con, you can do it all online with IRD for the same amount of effort!

Secondary tax penalises people who are trying to move ahead by taking a second job, especially many women who try to improve their financial position once children no longer need supervision. I have worked with women in an evening phone centre who were working that second job to pay for a child’s private education, a father who had got behind in childcare payments, and I have worked multiple jobs several times myself. When trying to pay off a student loan for example and then I was hit for double repayments of that too. Its a huge disincentive for lower paid workers.

I’m reasonably certain that secondary tax doesn’t penalise people – perhaps you could provide an example.

If you simplify the tax system to a single % and remove all loopholes/exemptions this won’t be needed. We must find a way to collect tax so all pay & all pay the same amount.

You can claim back excess tax at the end of the tax year already, secondary tax is at that rate so you don’t have a chance of owing more tax in the new tax year.