NZ Tax: GST Change May Cost Businesses “More”
May 28th, 2010
Consultancy Deloitte says the task of adjusting business systems to account for a rise in GST will be a bigger job, and thus potentially costlier, than expected. The Computer Society says some businesses will need entirely new software packages. Deloitte says companies need to find out where GST “touches” their systems. Some are looking at the pricing points in their system and the GST amounts and it’s just all hard-coded in. They should be working to minimise the amount of manual work needed to manage the changeover, particularly those firms not tracking GST as an actual item who just take 12.5% off all their invoices when calculating GST. The problem is when the change occurs there will be GST at 12.5% and 15% to account for at the same time, businesses are being warned not to wait but to make the required changes to their systems now.
Computer Society president Paul Matthews says some firms will be using legacy software no longer supported or developable and may have to purchase new systems. Businesses using up to date “off-the-shelf” and online software packages, such as MYOB and Xero, are not going to be significantly affected. Many small businesses using systems designed for them will have the GST rate hard-coded, meaning they will have to go back to the developer.
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