Baqir Hussain

A common example of that is if you have changed jobs during the year, if you've only worked, say, part year during the year, because what the employer does is they calculate your taxes on an annualized basis.

And so they assume you're working at that salary or at that amount for the year.

And if you only work for part of the year, you've tend to overpay your taxes or your employer has overpaid your taxes.

And so you get a refund back at the end of the year.

Exactly.

Look, I personally, I would always prefer to get a tax refund than a tax bill.

And it's about balance.

Yes, I've been overpaid during the year and the IRD is underpaid.

And yes, there's a time value of money component to that because I've got an interest-free balance.

loan of sorts, technically speaking, but it's still a tax bill at the end of the year.

And so it's psychological.

And I completely agree with you that I would not want to be in that category.

tax can be confusing and a lot of stuff out there on the media, especially social media, can be confusing because it's designed to be catchy and punchy.

But I think primarily the confusion for most people comes from the fact that there are two sets of tax rules, one for individuals and one for businesses.

And so once you get that distinction and clarity and understand that things become much easier.

So, for example, if you're in full-time employment, then there's a certain set of tax rules that would apply and pretty much which is the PAYE model.

And you'd get in your bank an after-tax salary and pretty much everything's automated for you as an individual from there on.

Even the end-of-year tax process, the IRD automates it.

versus when you're a business owner or if you're self-employed or if you're a contractor, then firstly different tax rules apply, which is the business tax rules.

And then it's a self-assessment model where the IRD expects you to file your own taxes.