Choosing the right Prescribed Investor Rate (PIR)

ANZ’s KiwiSaver schemes, the ANZ Investment Funds, OneAnswer Single-Asset-Class Funds, OneAnswer Multi-Asset-Class Funds, SIL Mutual Scheme, SIL Employer Scheme, MFL Mutual Scheme and the ANZ PIE Fund are Portfolio Investment Entities (PIEs). PIEs operate under special tax rules which may deliver better after-tax returns for investors.

A PIR is the tax rate that we use to work out how much tax to pay on your PIE income from these investments. 

Your PIR depends on whether you’re an individual investor or a non-individual investor (e.g. a company, partnership or trust, including trustees of trusts), and your tax residency status. If you’re investing as an individual (who is a New Zealand tax resident), your PIR may be 10.5%, 17.5% or 28%.

It’s important to make sure your PIR is correct so your investments are taxed correctly.

• If your PIR is too high, any tax over-withheld will be used to reduce any income tax liability you may have for the tax year and any remaining amount will be refunded to you. Inland Revenue will notify you if you're due a refund.
• If your PIR is too low, you’ll be required to pay any tax shortfall as part of the income tax year-end process.

If Inland Revenue believes your PIR with us is incorrect, they may provide us with an updated PIR for you. We’ll be required to update your profile with the new PIR.

You can subsequently change your PIR if you believe Inland Revenue hasn’t given us the correct one. You’ll also need to contact Inland Revenue and explain why you think the PIR is incorrect – you may need to provide them with updated income details for the past two years.

Before your PIR can be applied to your investments, you also need to tell us your IRD number.  This must be provided to us within six weeks of opening a new PIE investment. If you don’t, we’re required by law to close your account and refund the balance to you.

For investments opened before 1 April 2018, if we do not hold your IRD number your account will not be closed but the highest PIR of 28% will be applied.

What your PIR is depends on whether you’re an individual investor or an entity (e.g. a company, partnership or trust, including trustees of trusts). Below you’ll find information to help based on your specific circumstances.

Are you a New Zealand tax resident company, unit trust, charity, superannuation scheme, PIE or PIE investor proxy?

• Your PIR is 0%. You will need to pay any tax on your attributed PIE income yourself.

Are you a New Zealand resident trustee (other than of a charitable trust) or a trustee of a superannuation fund?

• Seek advice from a tax professional to help you choose the PIR that best suits your beneficiaries.

If you’re investing jointly with another person we will apply the highest PIR of the joint investors to calculate the tax.

To update your PIR: