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Superceded by an Approved Information Sharing Agreement "Privacy (Information Sharing Agreement between Inland Revenue and Ministry of Social Development) Order 2017". Further information is available here, and on the Inland Revenue website.
Purpose: To identify individuals receiving a benefit and working at the same time.
MSD disclosure to IR: Each record provided to IR includes the surname, first initial, date of birth, IRD number, MSD client number, and benefit date information.
IR disclosure to MSD: For the matched records, IR returns the employee's full name, date of birth, monthly gross income details, trading as name(s), MSD client number, IRD number, employer's name, address, email and phone contact details, and employment commencement and cessation dates.
| Information matching provision | Tax Administration Act 1994, s.82 - repealed on 18 March 2019 by section 49 of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2018/19; Modernising Tax Adminstration and Remedial Matters) Act 2019 (2019 No 5) |
| Year authorised | 1991 |
| Year operation commenced | 1993 |
| Year replaced by AISA | 2017 |
| Programme type | Confirming eligibility Detecting illegal behaviour Detecting processing errors |
| Unique identifiers | Tax File Number Social Welfare Number |
| Online transfers | Yes |
System description
Each month, MSD sends IR, by secure online transfer, details about a selection of MSD clients. Each record provided to IR includes the surname, first initial, date of birth, IRD number and MSD client number, and benefit date information.
IR matches the MSD information in a two-stage process. The first stage, called ‘Individual Validation’, identifies whether IR holds information about the individual. To do this, IR firstly confirms the existence and validity of the IRD number provided by MSD. IR then matches against the date of birth or surname and first initial provided by MSD. The Individual Validation process must be successful for the information comparison process to take place.
The second stage, ‘Information Comparison’, checks if there is an overlap between the period the individual was in receipt of benefit payments and any periods during which the individual was in receipt of other gross income.
For the matched records, IR returns to MSD the employee’s full name, date of birth, MSD and IRD identifiers, employer’s name, address, email and phone contact details, employment commencement and cessation dates and monthly gross income amount.
MSD checks its records to determine whether there is an explanation for the apparent discrepancy. If there is not, the individual is sent a notice of adverse action (s.103 notice).
Recent activity
| 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | |
| New match runs started in the reporting period | |||
| Match runs | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Records compared | 1,435 | 1,449 | 955 |
| Number of client cases | 1,285 | 1,299 | 877 |
| All match runs active in the reporting period | |||
| Legitimate cases | 1,285 | 1,299 | 877 |
| Notices of adverse action | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Overpayments established (number) | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Overpayments established | $31,476 | 0 | 0 |
| Challenges | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Successful challenges | 0 | 0 | 0 |
From November 2010, information received from IR was enhanced to include monthly gross income details and trading as' information. The enhanced information enables MSD to make more informed decisions about which records to investigate.
In 2016/17 this programme was not compliant. MSD extended the selection, beyond the criteria in the authorising legislation, to include people with debts. A limited number of people were affected and MSD ceased this when challenged by IR.
The utility of this provision was assessed in the report “Income Support Matches (21 May 1999)” and again in “Integrity Intervention Matches (July 2013)”
Since 2013, the operation of this programme has been scaled back. Instead, MSD have an information sharing agreement under section 81BA of the Tax Administration Act that enables MSD to check that clients are receiving their correct entitlements. Reporting on that activity is provided for in the MSD Annual Report. This agreement is revoked by the Tax Administration (Information Sharing with Ministry of Social Development) Order Revocation Order 2017, with effect from 31/08/2017.
Both this authorised information match and the information sharing agreement are being replaced from 31 August 2017 by a new Approved Information Sharing Agreement “Privacy (Information Sharing Agreement between Inland Revenue and Ministry of Social Development) Order 2017”.
