PIRs are changing effective April 1, 2010. If you have investments in a Portfolio Investment Entity (PIE ), such as a Cash PIE or a Term PIE, you will need to review the tax rate your institution is using for you. Presently, the rule is fairly straightforward: if your taxable income plus your PIE income was less than $38,000, your PIR is 19.5%, otherwise it is 30%. (The 19.5% rate status only applies if you are a NZ resident taxpayer, and have investments in PIEs.) Technically, it is slightly more involved than this, so for the full official rules that apply up to March 31, 2010, see the IRD website here. However, come the new tax year starting April 2010:

- In either of the two previous tax years (ie 2008 or 2009), if your taxable income was $14,000 or less, AND total taxable income and PIE income was $48,000 or less, the PIR becomes 12.5% - In either of the two previous tax years (ie 2008 or 2009), if your taxable income was $48,000 or less, AND total taxable income and PIE income was $70,000 or less, the PIR becomes 21% - If you earn above these levels, the PIR is 30% - non-resident PIR rates are unchanged at 30% The full official rules are on this IRD webpage here. We have updated our popular Deposit Calculator to include the new PIR rates. Please note that if you are a regular user of this calculator, you may need to clear your cache to get the new rates to show. (If you use Firefox, refreshing using F5 should do it, but for IE users you may need to clear the "Temporary Internet Files".) We will be changing our PIE rates page to reflect the new PIRs in mid-March.