Best Start Payment Calculator

This Best Start payment calculator estimates the weekly and annual Best Start tax credit you can receive for a young child in New Zealand. Best Start is part of the Working for Families package and helps with the cost of a new baby through the first three years. In the first year the payment is universal, paid at about $73 a week to every eligible family regardless of income. In the second and third years the payment becomes income tested, so the same base amount is reduced, or abated, by 21 cents for every dollar of family income above the threshold of roughly $79,000. To use the calculator, choose whether your child is in year one or in years two to three, enter your annual family income, and read off the weekly and annual payment after any abatement. New parents, sole parents and budgeting advisers use it to plan household cash flow around a new arrival and to see how returning to work might change the payment in later years. A few tips make the estimate more reliable. Use your expected family income for the full year rather than a single payslip, count both partners income and any taxable income such as self employed profit, and keep your details with Inland Revenue current so you are paid the right amount and avoid a year end square up. Remember that the year one payment is not affected by income at all, so a higher earning household still receives the full weekly amount for a newborn. Treat the result as a clear planning guide and confirm the exact figures and eligibility with Inland Revenue.

Year 1 is universal. Years 2 to 3 abate at 21% on family income above $79,000. Estimate only, not financial or tax advice.