Information on your full or part-time status no longer flows through to ACC’s database on the IRD IR3 form. If you held part-time status last year and this year your earnings crossed the threshold you will receive a letter from ACC automatically confirming your change to full-time status. In all other scenarios it is up to you to formally confirm a change of status with ACC.

It would pay to check your invoice this year and call us if there’s any confusion. You could get stung, for instance, if you have been paying levies on the basis of part-time status, have an accident, and then declare full-time status. In such a case ACC may query it and can backdate invoices levies up to four years – ouch!

The other point about being part-time is that then you will only pay ACC premiums on your actual earnings whereas if you are regarded as full-time, you will pay ACC premiums on the current level of minimum earnings as set by ACC, currently $26,520. In these recessionary times $26,520 is a lot to some!

Reflecting upon this later, it also surprises me why clients pay ACC bills without question yet always ask about their Income Tax bills. ACC levies have increased substantially over the last 10 years e.g. the employee levy has risen from 1.3% to 2.04%, and the people who work for ACC are no more (or no less) efficient than those who work for the IRD. As a result, many ACC bills are riddled with errors and these are just some of the problems I have seen in practice:

• Not an actual ACC bill, just a letter pre-warning of the likely levy to come, which the client, being a law-abiding citizen, paid. Not being a payment for an actual ACC bill, the payment got lost in the system
• Mistaken identity. Here my client received the ACC bill for another business with the same name
• Wrong ACC classification (very common)
• Multiple activities
• Incorrect entity or more than one entity
• Incorrect full or part-time classification
• Mix-ups with ACC Cover Plus Extra

One wouldn’t mind so much if ACC monies were spent wisely, but since fraudulent claims and poor practice seem to be endemic in the system, why pay any more than absolutely necessary? Get peace of mind with your ACC bills by contacting Nick on 0800 ASK NICK or email.

The Earner Premium is used to cover non-work related accidents by employees.

If it is the latter then are you not overtaxing employees to the tune of 1.7%?

If this is the case then surely employees are entitled to a refund of their ACC Levies on any payments made after their income exceeded $106,473?