24OIA1490
17 January 2024
Henry Williams
[email address]
Dear Henry Williams
Thank you for your request made under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA), received on 29
November 2023. You requested the following:
1. The number of application for donee status received by the Department within the last
36 months;
2. The Typical (average) time taken by the Department to access those applications, the
maximum time; and the least time taken for each of
(a) Those that applied;
(b) Those that were approved; and
(c) Those that were rejected.
Please also provide the number of application still outstanding, and the average time
since the application was received.
3. All internal/staff guidelines and assessment criteria – in particular, how the Department
determines what is (and is not) considered “benevolent” – under LD 3(2)(a) of the Income
Tax Act 2007.
4. All internal guidance and assessment criteria – in particular, how the Department
determines what is (and is not) considered “philanthropic” – under LD 3(2)(a) of the Income
Tax Act 2007
5. Any court or judicial (including Taxation Review Authority) guidance on any of the matters
above?
Questions 1 & 2
On 7 December 2023 we attempted to clarify the scope of questions 1 and 2 with you. As
mentioned, currently phrased your request covers extensive material requiring a manual search
of a large number of cases which would place undue strain on the resources of Inland Revenue.
We asked that you consider reducing this part of your request to the following:
• The number of charities registrations received in the past 36 months and how many of
those had donee status approved.
• The number of other organisations who have applied for donee status through Inland
Revenue who have had donee status approved.
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[24OIA1490]
As we did not receive a response, I have decided to partially refuse questions 1 and 2 under
section 18(f) of the OIA, as the information requested cannot be made available without
substantial collation or research.
However, I am able to provide the data outlined in the bullet points above with caveats.
Question 1: The number of charities registrations received in the past 36 months and
the outcome of the registration with respect to donee status:
Outcome
Count
Registration still in progress as at 1 Dec
38
2023
Had donee status after registration
3485
Did not have donee status after registration
172
Duplicate / invalid registration
52
Total
3747
Caveats:
• The total count is the number of Charitable Organisation Registration cases created
between 1 December 2020 and 30 November 2023 inclusive.
• Processing these registrations includes other tasks in addition to assessing the donee
status of the organisation.
• “Had donee status after registration” = customer either had donee status before the
registration and retained it afterwards or gained the status at the time of the registration.
• “Did not have donee status after registration” = customer has never had donee status,
has had donee status in the past but not since the charities registration, or donee status
commenced well after the registration was completed.
• “Duplicate / invalid” = duplicates are the second of two registrations for the same
customer during the time period, where the registration was either stopped or was at the
same time as the other registration. Registrations with no customer linked to them have
been labelled as invalid, as are those where a donee status was added then invalidated.
It is possible that some of the registrations in the ‘did not have donee status’ category
are actually duplicates or are for some reason invalid, however finding them would require
manually checking each case.
Question 2: The number of other organisations who have applied for donee status
through Inland Revenue who have had donee status approved
The total count of 224 customers is the number of customers with a ‘Donee Organisation’
commence date between 1 December 2020 and 30 November 2023 inclusive. This data was run
on 20 December 2023.
The donee status commence date does not necessarily align to when the application was made.
This was not possible to determine, as applications are sent in via general correspondence and
this reporting is based on the indicator against the account, rather than on the correspondence
item.
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[24OIA1490]
Customers counted here either did not have a Charitable Organisation Registration case created,
or they were deemed not to have gained donee status as a result of a registration (determined
using the same methodology as used in part 1 above), for example, they needed to apply
separately.
Questions 3 & 4
It is important to note that each application for donee status is considered individually on its
own merit.
There are two documents in scope of your request. One document, titled
ISSUES REPORT –
Escalations and Advising, is released to you with some information redacted under the following
sections of the OIA:
•
Section 9(2)(a) – to protect the privacy of natural persons
•
Section 9(2)(g)(i) – to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free
and frank expression of opinions by or between or to Ministers of the Crown or members
of an organisation or officers and employees of any public service agency or organisation
in the course of their duty.
The second document, Operational Statement
Charities and Donee Organisations: Part 2: Donee
Organisations (OS 22/04), outlines Inland Revenue’s tax treatment of donee organisations. This
document also sets out the Commissioner of Inland Revenue’s view of the meaning of
“benevolent” or “philanthropic” (see paragraphs 39-46). This document is available on Inland
Revenue’s Tax Technical website at
Charities and donee organisations (ird.govt.nz).
Therefore, your request is refused in part under section 18(d) of the OIA, as the document is
publicly available.
As is required by section 9(1) of the OIA, I have considered whether the grounds for withholding
the information required are outweighed by other public interest considerations which would
make it desirable to make this information available. In this instance, I do not consider that to
be the case.
Question 5
Any judicial or Taxation Review Authority (TRA) guidance on the issue at hand would be in
the form of decisions which are generally publicly available. The documents outlined in
questions 3 and 4 reference New Zealand decisions in this regard, as well as some Australian
and United Kingdom decisions that would be persuasive to a NZ court (or TRA). Therefore, this
part of your request is refused under section 18(d) of the OIA, as these decisions are
publicly available.
Right of review
If you disagree with my decision on your OIA request, you can ask an Inland Revenue review
officer to review my decision. To ask for an internal review, please email the Commissioner of
Inland Revenue at:
[email address].
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[24OIA1490]
Alternatively, under section 28(3) of the OIA, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
investigate and review my decision. You can contact the office of the Ombudsman by email at:
[email address].
If you choose to have an internal review, you can stil ask the Ombudsman for a review.
Publishing of OIA response
We intend to publish our response to your request on Inland Revenue’s website
(www.ird.govt.nz) as this information may be of interest to other members of the public. This
letter, with your personal details removed, will be published in its entirety. Publishing responses
increases the availability of information to the public and is consistent with the OIA's purpose of
enabling more effective participation in the making and administration of laws and policies and
promoting the accountability of officials.
Thank you for your request.
Yours sincerely
Richard Philp
Customer Segment Leader
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