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Income Tax Act 2007

Income - Exempt income

CW 16E: Accommodation expenditure: new employees

You could also call this:

“Tax-free accommodation for new employees in special work situations”

If you’re a new employee, you can get tax-free accommodation in some special cases. This is true even if you don’t meet all the usual rules for tax-free accommodation.

One case is when your employer plans for you to work at one workplace, but you need to work at a different, far-away workplace for a while. In this situation, your accommodation at the far-away workplace can be tax-free.

Another case is when you’re sent to work for someone else that your employer has a business relationship with. This is called an out-of-town secondment. For this to apply, you need to be working for that other person for no more than 2 years, and their workplace needs to be far away. In this case, that other person is treated as your employer when it comes to the rules about tax-free accommodation.

These rules are part of section CW 16B, which talks about when accommodation provided by your employer doesn’t count as part of your taxable income.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6439796.

Topics:
Money and consumer rights > Taxes
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CW 16D: Accommodation expenditure: conferences and overnight stays, or

“Tax rules for work-related overnight accommodation”

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CW 16F: Accommodation expenditure: multiple workplaces, or

“Rules for tax-free accommodation when you work at multiple locations”

Part C Income
Exempt income

CW 16EAccommodation expenditure: new employees

  1. Despite section CW 16B(2)(b), section CW 16B applies to a new employee in the following circumstances:

  2. when the employer intends, at the time of employing the new employee, that the new employee would work permanently at a workplace of the employer that is not a distant workplace, but instead requires the employee to work temporarily at another of their workplaces that is a distant workplace:
    1. the new employee is on an out-of-town secondment to work—
      1. for a person with whom the employer has a continuing commercial affiliation or working relationship, and for the purposes of section CW 16B, the person is treated as the employer; and
        1. for a period that is expected to be no more than 2 years; and
          1. at a distant workplace that is the person's workplace.

          Notes
          • Section CW 16E: inserted, on (applying for the 2015–16 and later income years), by section 24(1) of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Act 2014 (2014 No 39).