The MSD knows that the wage subsidy has been subjected to abuse ranging from school children, couriers, consultants and farmers through to large businesses and an Auckland woman who received over $35,000,000. Some employment agencies were paid up to $23,000,000 for everyone on their books. In each industry there were many businesses that did not […]

Auditor-General’s report on management of the wage subsidy.       May 2021 In my view, the use of a high-trust approach at the outset needs to be balanced with adequate verification after the payment has been made to properly protect the use of public money. I have also recommended that the Ministry of Social Development seek written

The SOC stated in paragraph 32 that prior to the Panel being convened, MSD made no decisions about enforcement action in relation to any case. They responded by saying some cases were sent to debt collection but did not say how many. Documents show that they wanted to complete wage subsidy work in December 2020. They

The Jobkeeper wage subsidy was available for 12 months to 31 March 2021.  It was administered by the Australia Tax Office who had access to the past income of businesses and they required verifying evidence to be provided. As a result, 900,000 businesses applied compared to 760,000 in New Zealand. However, the ATO was not

In August 2021 the Finance and Expenditure Committee of Parliament reported on the wage subsidy and endorsed the criticisms and recommendations made by the Auditor-General. The following quotes and notes were made about their report: The MSD has not fully implemented three of Deloitte’s recommendations: NOTE:  This implies that they fully implemented 9 recommendations, including

The Reserve Bank created $50 billion to support the economy and part of this was used for the wage subsidy but about $20 billion was overpaid.  This money was used to push up the prices of houses and assets and this created inflation. Now rents and mortgage costs have increased and other factors are causing

SAMPLE OF 1,000 The May 2021 report by the Auditor-General on the wage subsidy stated: 4.77 As part of our 2019/20 annual audit of the Ministry of Social Development, our Appointed Auditor recommended that the Ministry write to recipients of subsidy payments to seek re-confirmation that they complied with the requirements and obligations. This is

Most of the businesses and professional firms we have personal knowledge of have wrongly obtained or retained part of the wage subsidy they received.  They were able to work almost normally and suffered no genuine decline in revenue. We have not complained about them because we have concentrated on the big picture and we did not

(Refer to TREASURY OIA RESPONSE FEBRUARY 2021) ADVICE TO MINISTER OF FINANCE  21 March 2020 REGARDING REMOVING CAP OF $150,000 Description: This paper proposes options for Cabinet to: Remove the cap of the existing Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme to increase the coverage of the scheme to more employees in larger firms. Treasury supports the expansion