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Australia begins tipping off New Zealand tax office to student debtors

Xinhua, November 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

Australian tax authorities have handed New Zealand counterparts the names of thousands of possible New Zealand student loan borrowers who have decamped across the Tasman in order to catch defaulters, Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce said Tuesday.

New Zealand's Inland Revenue Department sent an initial list of 104,000 names of student loan borrowers to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) last week, Joyce said in a statement.

The ATO had responded with the matching details of 10,400 people living in Australia.

Inland Revenue would analyze the information, identify those in default and start contacting them to resume repaying their loans.

An information sharing agreement between the two agencies would help New Zealand authorities track down defaulters who owed a total of 1.074 billion NZ dollars (769.52 million U.S. dollars), said Joyce.

Inland Revenue would continue to work with the ATO to make further matches of the names already provided and carry out frequent matches throughout the year and ad-hoc matches as required.

"This new information exchange agreement will be a huge boost in enabling Inland Revenue to get in touch with those borrowers who have been hard to track down and those who have been deliberately avoiding their obligations for a number of years," said Joyce.

An estimated 90 percent of the total arrears is owed by defaulters living abroad and New Zealand authorities have begun deploying tough measures against student loan defaulters, including arresting them at the border when they return.

Since January six warrants for arrest had been issued and three people have been arrested and appeared before the court.

The methods have sparked controversy with critics saying they are a return to the debtors jail system of the 19th Century, while others have criticized the whole student loan scheme, claiming it entrenches inequality and prevents young people from buying homes in an already overheated housing market. Endit