We have built safeguards and flexibility into Taxi, to help them catch up and stop getting into further trouble.
For example, users can skip Taxi repayments without penalty. They can also make early repayments without penalty.
We have set the term at 9 months, but we can extend this period provided they have continued to make their provisional tax payments through Taxi.
As long as your client keeps paying their provisional tax on time, and pays the interest cost for any extensions, we’ll be able to extend their repayment term for as long as your client needs the money (at our discretion).
We only use their most recent provisional tax payments as security, so even if their Taxi repayments haven’t been made, we can still release their provisional tax payments that are required to be transferred to IRD. This is because we still have a source of security without the repayment, e.g. we have security over their new payments which aren’t due at IRD yet.
If your client falls behind in their provisional tax payments however, we will progressively reduce their Taxi facility limit so they don’t fall even further behind through additional borrowing. In this situation it would not be possible to extend a repayment term.
In addition to this, as their Taxi account is connected to their myIR account, we will continue to send them timely repayment reminders so that they are reminded to repay their Taxi funds in sufficient time to meet their provisional tax obligations with IRD.
In the unlikely situation that your client is unable pay their provisional tax payments and haven’t repaid amounts accessed on their Taxi facility, this means they haven’t paid their tax.
There will be no tax in their Taxi account to meet their tax obligations once their return is filed and they will need to settle their tax obligations directly with IRD.
This is no different to the current situation that exists with IRD if they fail to pay their provisional tax within 75 days of their terminal tax date via a tax pool.