Can I Get a Tax Refund If I Only Worked Part of the Year?

If you only worked for part of the tax year and were paid wages or a salary, chances are you will be owed a tax refund. This is because the NZ income tax system, PAYE or “Pay As You Earn” does not take into account people who aren’t employed for the full 12 months of the tax year. In this case, the employee would have been paying income tax on each paycheck at the percentage of the tax bracket you would be in if employed for the entire year. If you only worked part of the year, your income for that tax year will be considerably lower and hence you might actually be in a lower tax bracket and/or qualify for special tax rebates.

I only worked for 6 months, how can I get a tax refund?

The process for claiming a tax refund if you only worked for a few months of the year is exactly the same as if you worked the whole tax year. You will need your IRD number and information on the time period of which you worked part of the year. Next step is to choose one of the many tax refund companies from our compare tax refund agent page to process the refund on your behalf, or request an IRD Summary of Earnings if you wish to process the tax refund yourself.