You can now pay IRD taxes with an Amex card and earn points

Want more from your business tax payments? Here’s how to pay with RewardPay and score extra points.

Paying the tax bill is a necessary chore for any Kiwi business. Earning reward points from that payment makes the hassle a little easier to swallow.

Historically, New Zealand hasn’t had any options for getting extra points when paying taxes to the Inland Revenue (IRD). However, you can now use payments service RewardPay and your Amex card to earn points when paying tax for your business.

With Finder research showing 36% of Kiwis want to maximise their earnings in 2023, every little extra helps. Here’s what you need to know to start earning points from your business tax payments.

Who can earn points from paying their tax bill with RewardPay?

To earn points paying your tax bill with RewardPay, you’ll need to meet 2 basic conditions:

• You must operate a business in New Zealand with a registered New Zealand Business Number (NZBN). RewardPay is for businesses only.
• You must have a current Amex card that was issued in New Zealand. This can be a business Amex card or a personal Amex card used for business transactions.

If both of those apply, you can register with RewardPay. There’s no fee for signing up. Once registered, you can make payments to the IRD through the RewardPay site. (You can also use the service to make ACC insurance payments.)

The IRD normally charges a 1.42% convenience fee for any payment made by debit or credit card (and it won’t accept payments from Amex directly). However, payments made through RewardPay are made as a “direct credit”, so that 1.42% charge doesn’t apply.

How many points could I earn?

Every business is different, but let’s look at an example. The average business in New Zealand records annual pre-tax profits of $231,501, according to an analysis by ABC Business Brokers.

With a typical IRD business tax rate of 28%, that would lead to a tax payment of $64,820 each year.

The number of points you could earn from that payment will depend on your card. The Amex Gold Rewards card earns 2 Membership Rewards points for each $1 spent. For our average tax payment, that would work out to 129,640 Membership Rewards points.

What are those points worth? One popular option is to convert Membership Rewards into Air New Zealand Airpoint Dollars. With the Amex Gold Rewards card, 150 Membership Rewards points converts to 1 Airpoints Dollar. For our average tax payment, that amounts to 864 Airpoints Dollars – enough for a return flight from Auckland to Sydney.

That’s just one way of spending your Membership Rewards. You can also use them to pay for goods at Harvey Norman or Ticketmaster, spend them on travel rewards or use them to pay charges on your Amex account. Other Amex cards offer different rewards opportunities.

What does it cost to earn points when paying my tax bill?

If you use RewardPay to pay the IRD, you will have to pay a small fee, which is 1.67% of the transaction value. After tax, this rate can reduce to 1.2%, assuming a typical 28% business tax rate. (For specific tax advice, consult your accountant.)

For our example, a 1.2% fee on the business’s annual taxable income amounts to $778. In our redemption example, we earned $864 in Airpoints Dollar value, so we’d still come out ahead even after the fees.

Using a credit card for business payments has lots of potential benefits, including more flexible cashflow and the ability to earn points on everyday business expenses. Being able to pay your taxes with the same card and earn points can make the card even more valuable. If you want to get more from your business spending, it’s an option to investigate.