Proposed Gift Tax Calculator NZ
Speculative: this tax does not exist
New Zealand has no gift tax. Gift duty was abolished on 1 October 2011. This page models a tax that has not been introduced, legislated or announced as government policy. It exists so you can see what such a tax would cost if it were ever introduced at a rate you choose.
The rate is yours to set on the slider. The starting figure is an illustrative round number, not a proposal, and is not attributed to any political party. No numbers on this page describe current New Zealand law, and none should be quoted as though they do.
This calculator models a gift tax, sometimes called gift duty, if New Zealand reintroduced one. No such tax exists today. Gift duty was abolished on 1 October 2011, so you can currently give away as much as you like without a tax on the gift itself. That said, gifting still has consequences that have nothing to do with tax: large gifts can affect residential care subsidy assessments, and gifts made with the intention of defeating creditors can be unwound, so the absence of gift duty does not make gifting consequence-free. A gift tax normally works with an annual exempt amount, so small gifts never attract it and only the excess is taxed. You enter the value of the gift, set the annual exempt amount and move the slider to the rate you want to model, and the calculator shows the taxable portion, the duty, and what the recipient is left with.
A hypothetical figure for a tax that does not exist. It is arithmetic on the rate you chose, not a forecast, a policy costing or advice.
How it works
The taxable portion is the value of the gift less the annual exempt amount, never less than zero. The duty is that portion multiplied by the rate on the slider. The recipient keeps the gift less the duty, which assumes the duty is paid out of the gift; under the old New Zealand regime gift duty was payable by the person making the gift.
Worked example
A gift of $150,000 with an annual exempt amount of $27,000 leaves a taxable portion of $123,000. At a rate of 5 percent the duty would be $6,150, so the recipient keeps $143,850, and the duty is about 4.1 percent of the gift.
Related calculators
- Proposed Inheritance Tax Calculator: a hypothetical tax on estates.
- Proposed Asset Tax Calculator: a hypothetical annual tax on net wealth.
- Inheritance Split Calculator: divide an estate under current rules.
- Net Worth Calculator: what you own less what you owe.
- All Proposed Tax Calculators: the full speculative category, and what New Zealand actually taxes.