Inland Revenue
Te Tari Taake
21 March 2019
Mr Yang Yang
fyi-request-9642-1 b9cc333@requests. fyi .org. nz
Dear Mr Yang
Thank you for your request made under the Official Information Act 1982 (the OIA), received on
21 February 2019. You requested the following:
•
The number of tax returns that generated rental profit for the same 85 regions from
1997-2016
•
The number of tax returns that generated rental loss for the same 85 regions from
1997-2016
On 27 February 2019 you spoke to one of our Senior Financial Analysts and discussed the
pitfalls of categorising the data-set according to NZ Post's postcode regions. You
acknowledged that the data could lead to misrepresentation and misinterpretation of results
but clarified that you would still like the regional breakdowns.
An excel spreadsheet containing data about total rental profits, total rental losses, and total
net rental income from 1997 to 2016 (by region) has been attached to this response.
Since your last OIA request, we have revised the data set by further refining the querying
method. As a result, we are also providing the newly revised dollar value of rental activity
with the requested volume data.
There remain strong limitations to regional breakdowns of Inland Revenue tax
administrative data due to insufficient coverage in some areas (for example, non-filers with
old/missing addresses). More importantly, tax returns do not individually identify the region
where the aggregated net residential rental income or loss is related to. For example,
aggregated residential rental income reported from Auckland does not necessarily mean
that all the rental activities were located in the Auckland region.
The regional breakdown provided in this response is based on post codes contained in the
address of the filer of relevant tax returns. The regions that are provided are NZ Post's
postcode regions, rather than territorial authority or regional council boundaries.
Again, please note that taxpayers with residential rental income were identified from a
generic search on business activities. This exercise attempted to exclude other rental
activity such as commercial property, but since taxpayers often do not provide sufficiently
clear descriptive details, an element of commercial or other non-residential rental activity
(for example, a boat renting business) may remain.
Thank you for your request. I trust the information we were able to provide is of some use
to you.
Yours sincerely
±le:: lJo��
Manager, Forecasting and Analysis
Ref: 190IA185
www.ird.govt.nz
IN CONFIDENCE