As you will no doubt be aware, all of the country except Auckland and Northland shifts to Level 3 at midnight tonight.  At this stage, Level 3 is pencilled in to last one week.

Level 3 is still very much a lockdown, although it does allow a lot more economic activity through contactless means.  Hopefully, we will see the same community spirit we saw last year, and people will support each other’s businesses as trading resumes.

Wage Subsidy

With the extension of alert levels, the Work and Income website is already showing that a further two weeks of Wage Subsidy will be open from the 3rd of September. Still, no further details are available at this stage.

We saw a sharp bounce-back of trading the last time alert levels came down so we suggest that businesses that can trade to some extent in Level 3 should exercise caution if they are considering making a claim based on a predicted 40% turnover drop as they will be required to repay if the actual turnover drop was not 40% or more.  

We will provide you with more information about eligibility criteria as it is released.

Resurgence Support Payment 

In the prior instances of the RSP being activated, it was activated 7 days at a time.  This time it has been activated until all of New Zealand is back at Alert Level 1.  The existing guidance on IRD’s website does not discuss the ability to reapply for the RSP after 7 days, but as far as we are aware multiple claims are allowed as long as they are for different 7-day periods within the increased Alert Level settings.  

As the RSP works in 7-day blocks, businesses whose revenue continued to suffer a 30% hit as a result of Covid into the second week of lockdown should be able to reapply from tomorrow for that second week of lockdown (assuming the first day of the period they applied for last time was from the first day of lockdown (Wednesday the 18th)).

Hopefully, the Inland Revenue will provide more guidance around multiple claims in the coming days.