Kia ora koutou,

As you are all hopefully aware, many of the highly valued services and activities that the school is able to offer our Tamariki are only made possible by parent donations. We are fortunate to have this support, and we appreciate your generosity and commitment to the school. This funding dramatically and positively impacts our children's education.

We acknowledge that times may be challenging for many in our community, therefore we wanted to ensure that you were aware of the ability to claim a tax credit (ie a cash refund) for school donations you have paid. 

Donations to Seatoun School are eligible for a tax credit of up to 33.33% of the total of donations paid. Importantly, you can claim donations going back four years. Therefore, if you have not claimed donations for the previous tax years then you can still do that. As a guide, you can currently submit a claim for donations made to the school from 1 April 2020 onwards.

Making a claim is a simple and quick process, and you can submit a donation claim anytime during the tax year and the IRD will pay you directly to your designated bank account. Please be aware that you cannot make a claim in excess of your taxable income, therefore you may need to consider whose name you are claiming the tax credit under to maximise the tax credit. Also, a donation tax credit can only be claimed once. Either in full by one person or shared between caregivers. 

The detailed steps are well set out on the IRD link here: https://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax/income-tax-for-individuals/individual-tax-credits/tax-credits-for-donations/submit-a-donation-receipt.  A high-level summary of the steps required are as follows:

1. Log into your HERO account through a computer browser. 

2. Follow the detailed instructions found here.
   

3. Register for a donations tax credit account with the IRD via myIR. Once registered you will not have to do this step again.

1. If you don’t already have a myIR account you can create one using this link here and clicking on ‘Not yet registered for myIR?’: https://myir.ird.govt.nz/tools/_/

1. Once registered with IRD you can upload your donation receipts to access the cash refund.

   1. Alternatively, you can complete the hard copy form from the following link and attach your donation receipts and post this to the IRD:  https://www.ird.govt.nz/-/media/project/ir/home/documents/forms-and-guides/ir500---ir599/ir526/ir526-2022.pdf?modified=20240505225911&modified=20240505225911

If you are in a position to pass on any tax credits claimed to the school, then this would be gratefully accepted and help us maintain our current high standard of facilities. Please contact John Western if you wish to make a further donation of the tax credit received to the school.

If you have any questions about the application process, or about donations to the school in general, then please contact our Office Manager, Sarah Gerondis.