New Zealand taxpayers have logged into Inland Revenue’s upgraded online services portal more than seven million times following the completion of one of the largest data migrations undertaken by a New Zealand government agency.

Some 20 million income tax records, representing around $5 billion in financial transactions, were moved over to Inland Revenue’s new tax system during a seven-day shutdown of services back in April.

Moving income tax to the new system marks the biggest change in 20 years for Inland Revenue and is the third and biggest stage of its multi-year transformation.

“This was a monumental task – far larger than the two previous releases but we have managed to complete it successfully,” says Greg James, Deputy Commissioner for Transformation.

“The tax system that we have now is vastly superior to the one we had before and I think all taxpayers will get to experience the benefit of that.”

Inland Revenue has begun to issue its first ever automatic tax assessments from its new system.

More than 2.5 million salary and wage earning New Zealanders will find out over the next two months whether they have a refund owing, a bill to pay or neither of these.

Most customers will receive a refund and will see that money deposited into their bank account without them having to lift a finger.