Online IRD prank to have police postscript

A prank by a – presumably disgruntled – taxpayer who altered their personal information on the IRD’s website looks set to result in them receiving a visit from police.

According to an IRD spokesman, the individual “changed their address details on their own personal MyIR profile page on the Inland Revenue website, substituting an abusive message where the street name should have appeared.”

That message, NBR understands, was “5 Someone Kill John Key This Year Please.”

“The automated mail process addressed the letter, which obviously could not then be delivered,” the spokesman says. “Like any wrongly addressed mail, it was picked up at New Zealand Post and returned to IRD.”

In the interim, however, it appears someone at NZ Post passed a copy of the letter to a member of the media. [But not this one, by the way.]

“We have taken this incident very seriously,” the IRD spokesman says, “and because of the nature of the message and the mishandling of mail at New Zealand Post, it was reported to the police and to New Zealand Post.”

NBR is awaiting confirmation from Canterbury police that they are investigating the case.

Assuming they are, it shouldn’t be an especially onerous task.

As the IRD spokesman notes, the taxpayer’s MyIR page would contain personal information like their name and IRD number, which should expedite police efforts to identify them.

The spokesman is at pains to point out IRD has 1.6 million individual and business customers with personal profile pages on its website and “incidents such as this are isolated and very rare”.

In addition, IRD regularly runs checks of the addresses it holds against New Zealand Post’s address database to identify and correct any incorrect addressing.

The spokesman also takes the opportunity to plug the MyIR service.

“Do you have a MyIR account?” he asks. “Oh, you really should – just jump on the Inland Revenue website and register. It’s a very good thing, and designed to make it easier for New Zealanders to deal with their tax affairs.”

It also allows taxpayers to manage their own contact details – a feature that’s usually a convenience for users but appears likely to be about to cause one not-particularly bright individual a spot of bother with the boys in blue.