A bill to assist Canterbury residents affected by the September and February earthquakes with tax matters has been tabled in Parliament.
Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says the current law was never designed to cope with disasters of the scale of the Canterbury and Christchurch quakes.
He says the bill introduces an exemption so businesses do not have to pay tax and gift duty on trading stock they donated until March 2012.
Mr Dunne says certain welfare contributions provided by employers within eight weeks of either quakes, on 4 September 2010 and 22 Februrary this year, are exempted from tax.
The bill also extends the redundancy tax credit to the end of September this year.
