End of financial year fast approaching and you are wondering when your 2026 tax return will be done

Because its 2026 and why do we have to wait?

The first part of April I am flat out with March GST returns. All my GST prep clients have work for me in April: monthly, two month and six monthly filers.

Next are those clients with provisional tax issues and a payment looming 7th May. We already know who these are, because we know their 2026 financial year income is vastly different to 2025. These clients are already booked in for good drafts in the second half of April.

That's April done then.

From there on, it's first in first serve. So if you have a deadline for the bank or other lenders, please don't leave it until the last week before you need to provide accounts. I mean I can get them done by working nights/weekends, but we charge a premium for me doing that.

Individuals can't file their tax return until after 15th May. This is because kiwisaver and other PIE funds don't have to file with IRD until 15th May. So even if we could do your individual tax return because you don't have PIE/Kiwisaver investments, IRD won't assess it. Also if you have any bank interest, that might not flow through to IRD until 20th April. So individuals, hang fire until at least May.

I am taking emailed bookings for those clients keen to get their accounts done. Keep in mind for quality control purposes I can only have so many on the go at once, I'm sure you don't want to be the job we rush through.

I am looking at opening up an online booking system for annual accounts. We did this a few years ago and had a few use it. This would limit the numbers that could book in each week to something manageable. It would also (hopefully) send you an email with the information we are going to need, that would be quite generic and might include requests for things that don't apply - but it would give you a list to work on to start collating ready for when I ask for them. Keen to hear from anyone willing to beta test this for me!