Storing taxpayer electronic records offshore – Xero Limited Approved

Inland Revenue advised on 21 October 2013 that the following organisations have been approved under s 22(8)(a) of the Tax Administration Act 1994 to store taxpayers’ electronic records outside of New Zealand:

  • • CargoWise NZ Limited
  • • MYOB NZ Limited, and
  • • Xero Limited.

Taxpayers who store their business records with these approved organisations do not need to obtain approval under s 22(2BA) to store their business records outside of New Zealand.

Although a third party provider may be used to store business records, taxpayers remain responsible for their tax obligations, including retaining business records for the retention period (usually seven years) required under the Tax Administration Act.

Further information is available in standard practice statement SPS 13/01: “Retention of business records in electronic format, application to store records offshore and application to keep records in Maori”. The standard practice statement provides guidelines on the retention of business records in electronic format and sets out the Commissioner’s practice when considering an application to store business records offshore.