I am doing some research to support the small business community (that I work in) and ultimately to support publishing my second self-help business book. Our business brings us in contact with many small businesses. Many of them don't manage their cash well and often end up in repayment programs with the IRD. My research on liquidations of small businesses also indicates it is the IRD who suffer the most when such failures occur (ref: Insolvency Watch and Companies Office liquidation reports). I would be really keen to understand the extent of the impact unpaid taxes from small business failures has on the IRD (and the taxpayer). Ideally being able to separate out the total losses to IRD caused by businesses going into liquidation would be ideal. This highlights the size of the cost of businesses not managing themselves as they should - my research indicates most liquidations are preventable. My ultimate goal is to build material that highlights the impact of business failures and then highlight what businesses should be doing to prevent it. Can you help with any of these statistics?

It would highlight the impact of small business failures on the taxpayer and government revenues from unpaid taxes. The most common outstanding creditor in all company liquidations is the IRD. I would like to understand this better to communicate it widely to small businesses across NZ so they manage their businesses better.

Quantifying the extent of the burden placed on taxpayers to cover these losses. I am assuming it is Hundreds of Millions of dollars each year based on basic research