A tax that cost $70 million a year to administer but earned only $1 million in tax revenue has been formally abolished.
The tax was gift duty and was eliminated in a law that passed in August and came into effect on 1 October.
Under the now-abolished law, duty was required to be paid on gifts of more that $27,000 a year, but the tax was widely avoided.
Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says gift duty long ago stopped serving a meaningful purpose and had become an antiquated and bureaucratic imposition on people and businesses.
