Tax strategy playbooks / wedding photographer
$50k–$150k/yr · 5 strategies
Ecommerce operators — whether you sell on Shopify, Etsy, Trade Me, or direct — often mix NZ and overseas revenue, carry gear and inventory, and end up with an uncategorised expense pile at year end. Each of those gaps is a deduction quietly going missing.
General information, not tax advice. Worked examples use fictional personas; figures are illustrative.
Aroha's design work took off, and at around $30k a year of rolling 12-month billing she could see the $60,000 GST registration threshold coming.
Rather than wait to be forced across, she registered voluntarily, repriced her work with GST in mind, and started claiming GST back on software and gear.
When she crossed the threshold there was no scramble. Registration is required within 21 days once you're over, and she was already set up.
Illustrative example — not a real customer. Figures are based on your numbers and rounded.
PayWren finds this automatically: connect your invoices and expenses and the tax engine flags this strategy when it applies to your numbers, on the Solo plan.
Ruth builds Shopify stores from Dunedin for clients in Australia and the US, and had been adding 15% GST to every invoice.
She confirmed each client was a non-resident who was outside New Zealand while she did the work, with nobody in NZ receiving the service, then zero-rated those invoices.
The GST line came off her export invoices. The checks are the point: get residency wrong and you still owe the GST, plus interest.
Illustrative example — not a real customer. Figures are based on your numbers and rounded.
Services are zero-rated only if the recipient is a non-resident who is outside New Zealand at the time the service is performed. Services contracted by a non-resident but received by a third party in NZ are not zero-rated.
PayWren finds this automatically: connect your invoices and expenses and the tax engine flags this strategy when it applies to your numbers, on the Solo plan.
Sam shoots weddings across the Bay of Plenty, invoicing around $30k a year, but a chunk of his spending was sitting uncategorised.
He worked through the uncategorised pile and tagged each expense properly — software, gear and insurance each in its own category.
Categorised expenses are the ones that reliably make it into the return. Uncategorised ones are where deductions quietly go missing.
Illustrative example — not a real customer. Figures are based on your numbers and rounded.
PayWren finds this automatically: connect your invoices and expenses and the tax engine flags this strategy when it applies to your numbers, on the Solo plan.
Tama had several purchases over $1,000 each with nothing but bank statements as proof.
He asked each supplier for a full tax invoice — supplier name, GST number, date, description and GST amount — and attached them to the expenses.
His GST claims now hold up if IRD asks. Over $1,000, a bank statement alone doesn't cut it.
Illustrative example — not a real customer. Figures are based on your numbers and rounded.
PayWren finds this automatically: connect your invoices and expenses and the tax engine flags this strategy when it applies to your numbers, on the Solo plan.
Tama wires new builds around Hamilton and bought new test gear after 22 May 2025, each item over $1,000 excl-GST.
His accountant applied the Investment Boost, an extra 20% deduction in year one on top of normal depreciation, and confirmed each asset was new and qualified before filing.
That brought a fifth of the asset cost forward as a year-one deduction instead of waiting on the depreciation schedule.
Illustrative example — not a real customer. Figures are based on your numbers and rounded.
PayWren finds this automatically: connect your invoices and expenses and the tax engine flags this strategy when it applies to your numbers, on the Solo plan.
Connect your invoices and expenses and the tax engine flags which of these strategies apply to your specific numbers, no manual review required.
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