Each Fisher Funds KiwiSaver Scheme, Superannuation Scheme, and individual Managed Fund is registered as a Portfolio Investment Entity (PIE). Each PIE pays or claims tax on your share of taxable income of the fund based on your Prescribed Investor Rate (PIR).
What is a Prescribed Investor Rate (PIR)?
There are four PIRs available to investors who have provided their IRD number. Depending on the type of investor you are (e.g. individual investor, trustee, company) and your tax residency status, the rates are 0%, 10.5%, 17.5% and 28%.
How to work out your PIR
It’s important to ensure your PIR is correct as this is the rate we will use to calculate your tax payable or refundable.
To confirm your PIR visit Inland Revenue’s website. If you are unsure which PIR to use, please speak to your tax adviser.
Provided that you advise us of your correct PIR (being greater than 0%) and IRD number, tax paid by a fund on income attributed to you will generally be a final tax.
Inland Revenue may advise us to change your PIR to the rate they believe to be correct for you.
How to update your PIR
You can check or change your PIR by logging in to your Fisher Funds Online account and clicking on 'My details', or by clicking on your name at the top left in the Fisher Funds mobile app.
How you pay tax on your investment
If you owe tax to Inland Revenue, we will cancel some of your units and pay this to Inland Revenue on your behalf. If you are due a tax refund, we’ll claim this from Inland Revenue and issue units in the fund on your behalf. This may not occur until the rebate is received from Inland Revenue. If you withdraw or transfer from a fund during the tax year, tax will be paid or refunded at that time.
Do you need to include this in your income tax return?
If you are a New Zealand tax resident natural person, Inland Revenue will calculate any PIE tax over/under paid based on the PIR applied and add that to your end of year income tax position as part of its automated year end assessment process. No further action is required where the PIR applied is correct for the year.
If you are a non-New Zealand tax resident or entity other than a natural person, if your PIE income is taxed using:
the 28% PIR, no further action should be required
an advised PIR less than the 28% PIR but greater than 0%, you may need to file a NZ income tax return and may be liable to Inland Revenue for further tax and penalties
a PIR of 0%, you will need to file a NZ income tax return.
If you are unsure whether you need to include the information in your income tax return, please speak to your tax adviser.
Which PIR to use for a joint account
If you are investing jointly with another person or persons, the highest PIR of the joint investors will be used. We notify Inland Revenue of the joint investors’ details and Inland Revenue splits the income and tax equally between all joint investors. If you disagree with Inland Revenue’s allocation of income and tax to joint investors, we are unable to change this but you can change the allocation in myIR. All joint investors will need to make this change.
Will you send me an end of year tax statement?
If you are a member of our KiwiSaver Schemes or Superannuation Schemes (the Schemes), or Managed Funds, or were a member at any point during the tax year (1 April to 31 March), a tax statement will be sent to all investors each year by the end of May for Managed Funds or by the end of June for the Schemes. The tax statement summarises the tax that was paid or refunded on your taxable income for the tax year.
Once the statements are available, you’ll be able to download a copy from the 'Reports’ section of your Fisher Funds Online account or the Fisher Funds mobile app.