60 articles
Seventy-seven percent of accountants in a recent survey flagged the 15 January deadline for provisional tax and GST payments as particularly challenging for clients.
New Zealand rural confidence stayed positive for a ninth straight quarter in August 2026, with horticulturalists overtaking sheep and beef as the most optimistic sector while investment plans stayed soft.
Cabinet’s Economic Policy Committee has formally authorised public consultation on a prudential levy to shift Reserve Bank supervision costs onto banks, insurers and market infrastructure operators from 2027/28.
Parliament passed the India Free Trade Agreement legislation 93–29 on 16 September 2026. Preferential tariffs await mutual ratification, with Indian officials pointing to mid-to-late October entry into force.
Higher distribution and transmission charges accounted for 54% of the 6.8% average power-price rise for households and small businesses in the first half of 2026, Electricity Authority retailer data show, as Commerce Commission revenue paths and a multi-decade electrification bill keep network costs rising.
BusinessNZ’s 2026 election survey finds firms almost evenly split on a capital gains tax, a sharp shift from 2023 opposition, while majorities demand tax-rate stability and bipartisan infrastructure amid multi-year OBEGALx deficits.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has signalled Research and Development Tax Incentive changes and action on income-tax bracket creep as National’s next tax priorities, locked to the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update on 29 September.
Health Minister Simeon Brown has marked the start of major works on Whangārei Hospital’s acute services building and Budget 2026-backed 158-bed ward tower, a multi-year Crown capital path still partly held in tagged contingency.
Treasury has issued a clean Consistency Accountability Statement for interim overseas investment fee cuts of about 26%, effective 11 September 2026, under the new Regulatory Standards Act framework.
Revenue Minister Simon Watts has introduced the omnibus Taxation Bill to enact remaining Budget 2026 tax measures, including FBT vehicle simplification and FIF threshold changes, with Parliament’s dissolution set for 1 October.
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has recommended by majority that the India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill pass, with technical fixes so exporters can use first-year quotas if the deal enters force mid-year.
New Zealand’s June-quarter power mix hit a record 92% renewables and wholesale prices fell 66% year-on-year, MBIE data show. Residential costs still rose 10% on network charges, and dry-year insurance remains unfinished.
A substantial tax bill introduced to the House would replace motor-vehicle fringe benefit tax day-counting with six private-use categories from 1 April 2027 and lift the Foreign Investment Fund de minimis to $100,000.
The Financial Markets Authority says the mean KiwiSaver balance crossed $40,000 for the first time in the year to 31 March 2026, reaching $40,340 as funds under management climbed to $138.8 billion.
The average KiwiSaver balance crossed $40,000 for the first time in the year to 31 March 2026, the FMA reported, as funds under management reached $138.8 billion and members paid $978.2 million in fees.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has reappointed David McClatchy to the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation Board for three more years, citing continuity for the $94.4 billion NZ Super and Elevate funds through the pre-election period.
Resources Minister Shane Jones will scrap petroleum royalties on non-saleable cushion gas, targeting a 2013 rule that charges developers 5% on original gas in underground storage facilities.
NZ Vine Care Limited, a dormant Katikati horticultural labour supplier, entered shareholder liquidation owing Inland Revenue $845,000 as the sole preferential creditor, crystallising years of PAYE, GST, penalties and interest.
From December 2026, Active Investor Plus Growth applicants can count approved managed funds that support Build to Rent toward their NZD $5 million New Zealand investment, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford announced.
Methanex’s Q1 2027 idle frees a large gas block for Genesis and other users, promising near-term wholesale relief. Household bills stay pinned by fixed network costs, while the loss of 95 TJ/day flex and a 731 PJ 2P base raise structural price and security risk.
The Coalition has put $3 million of Regional Infrastructure Fund operating money behind the Taranaki Alliance, an industry bid vehicle intended to redeploy oil-and-gas engineering skills as Methanex prepares to idle Motunui from early 2027.
ANZ Bank New Zealand is consulting on winding most of its Dunedin contact-centre capacity down to two roles, while the NZ franchise booked $2.37 billion cash profit and the parent still talks efficiency.
New Zealand ranks in the IMF’s global top ten on AI preparedness, yet Datacom finds only 4% of firms say AI has transformed core operations. The conversion gap—not discovery—is now the growth constraint.
New Zealand will send a trade mission to Brisbane so firms can bid into an estimated A$15 billion Brisbane 2032 Games investment programme, after CER trade ministers accelerated Single Economic Market work in Auckland.
Budget 2026 locked the Māori Development Fund at $38.21 million a year from 1 July 2026. Te Puni Kōkiri is deploying the fund under strict 50 percent cash co-investment rules to de-risk Māori asset and export projects.
The Crown has vested with rights to $2,377.28 linked to the estate of late Queenstown hotelier Kevin Carlin after removal of Ex CHPML Limited from the Companies Register, Treasury has notified under section 324 of the Companies Act 1993.
New Zealand’s international education export earnings reached $4.98 billion in the year to June 2026, surpassing the pre-Covid year-to-June 2019 total of $4.4 billion, Education Minister Erica Stanford said.
Auckland firms lifted positive confidence to 26% and cut negative readings to 40% in the Chamber’s August survey, a sharp rebound from May’s oil-shock trough, while hiring and investment intentions rose and late payments collapsed—yet consumer demand remains the binding constraint as the OCR climbs to 2.75%.
New Zealand’s food and fibre exports are on track for a record $64.3 billion while the arable complex that underpins seed security and domestic grain is contracting under dairy conversion, processor exits and sticky costs.
An Icehouse Ventures survey of 100 business owners and leaders ranked business tax relief last among pre-election priorities, putting infrastructure, health and energy first as firms weigh party economic platforms before 7 November.
Delegat Group lifted operating NPAT 20% to $61.5 million and cut net debt $51.8 million in FY26, even as the same week’s vine pulls showed growers absorbing the surplus the Oyster Bay owner refused to dump.
Comvita swung back to a $7.7 million profit and exited net debt after a $40.5 million F&N-anchored recap, as North America sales more than doubled and inventory normalised—closing a multi-year repair that followed shareholders’ rejection of the Florenz scheme.
Centrix data put hospitality liquidations at 3.3 times the all-business average even as industry sales and card spending lift. The exits are a lagging cleanup of post-Covid balance sheets meeting Inland Revenue enforcement and soft labour demand.
Cabinet has agreed to expedite interim gas market disclosure rules, citing a material risk Methanex exits before full transparency regulations take effect in early 2027.
The Government has rescinded October 2025 decisions that would have forced KiwiSaver and other managed funds to report private and unlisted holdings in granular categories on the Disclose Register from March 2027.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s stock survey for the year to 30 June 2026 puts the national beef herd at 3.96 million head, up 3.3 percent, while sheep numbers fell 2 percent to 22.78 million.
Forestry Minister Todd McClay has appointed former Bay of Plenty regional chair Doug Leeder as facilitator to advise Ministers on further support or intervention for forestry in Tairāwhiti, days after Gisborne District Council launched its own independent review of consenting and compliance.
Christchurch City Holdings is committing about $300 million of public capital to an $821 million Lyttelton container expansion after rejecting a DP World–rūnanga operating lease, pairing seismic resilience with a prospective bet on dual large-ship berths and design capacity near 850,000 TEU by 2031.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s 20–22 August Auckland visit will launch a New Zealand–Thailand Strategic Partnership. For dairy exporters, the real test is whether Milk Board rationing of zero-tariff access ends.
Cabinet has agreed to progress a Ministry for Regulation package aimed at cutting residential solar approval costs from about $640 and three months to roughly $200 and six days, and legalising plug-in solar.
Westpac New Zealand has scrapped merchandise redemptions from its hotpoints credit cards after only 7 percent of points were used that way, shifting customers toward merchant-funded cashback offers that sit outside the bank’s classic points P&L.
New Zealand recorded 201,900 overseas visitor arrivals in June 2026, up 8.1 per cent on a year earlier and equal to 95 per cent of June 2019 levels, Stats NZ figures show.
An independent expert panel has granted Fast-track approvals for Genesis Energy’s 220 MWp Foxton Solar Farm, the 32nd project and eighth renewable cleared under the permanent regime.
Labour productivity in New Zealand civil construction fell 6% between 2020 and 2024, Newsroom reported from Te Waihanga data, erasing most of two decades of prior gains as a multi-hundred-billion infrastructure pipeline looms.
Zespri has filed a US lawsuit seeking refund of multi-million-dollar tariffs it paid as importer of record after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s IEEPA duties.
The Environmental Protection Authority cut its hazardous-substances release queue by more than a third in 2025/26 and posted the highest annual decision total since 2018/19, yet missed Statement of Performance Expectations targets on complex applications.
New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals has granted Matahio NZ Onshore Limited a 10-year petroleum mining permit over the onshore Taranaki Puka field, the second such grant in eight years as national 2P gas reserves sit at a record low.
New Zealand’s National Infrastructure Pipeline has climbed to $290 billion, but only about one-third of that stock is fully funded, Te Waihanga’s June 2026 snapshot shows.
Global whey powder prices rose 76% year-on-year in June, Rabobank data show, as New Zealand processors expand high-value protein capacity on the back of proteinmaxxing demand and GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
Inland Revenue imposed 4,607 shortfall penalties in the year ended 30 June 2025, nearly double the prior year, as Budget-funded compliance work drove a sharp rise in gross-carelessness sanctions.
ANZ cut 85 bank ATMs over two years and Westpac cut 54, as free cash access thins and private machines charge about $2.50 a withdrawal ahead of RBNZ’s September cash findings.
The High Court has banned convicted insider trader Peter Huljich from managing financial markets participants for seven years, closing the FMA’s Pushpay proceedings after he did not oppose the order.
An independent Fast-track panel has approved Ngāi Tahu Seafood’s Hananui open-ocean king salmon farm off Rakiura, the first aquaculture consent under the 2024 Act and a material step toward the Government’s $3 billion aquaculture revenue target by 2035.
Spark’s full-year result on 20 August anchors an NZX reporting season that will test whether near-record equities reflect real resilience—or mask a household squeeze from 5.6% unemployment, 4.1% CPI and a renewed OCR hike to 2.50%.
The Crown has signed binding deals to monetise residual interest-free Chorus fibre securities for about $702 million net, a $60 million-plus premium to book value already scored in Budget 2026 capital settings.
The Labour Party on 6 August 2026 announced a $1.56 billion package of targeted relief for small businesses, financed by repealing National's Investment Boost scheme.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Cameron Brewer have appointed James Miller as chair of the Financial Markets Authority for a five-year term starting 6 August 2026.
Overseas investors secured consents for more than $24 billion in New Zealand transactions through the Overseas Investment Office in the 2025/26 year, transferring 106,000 hectares of land.
The Government has capped taxpayer contributions for two new Cook Strait rail ferries at $1.7 billion, securing claimed savings of $2.3 billion compared with the cancelled Project iReX.
Inland Revenue has applied to liquidate three Auckland companies tied to Olympic decathlete Brent Newdick’s former Parnell hospitality venues amid a sharp rise in sector insolvencies.
