Covid 19 coronavirus: IRD website down, businesses unable to apply for Covid-19 Resurgence Support Payment

Businesses in need of urgent financial support are unable to apply for the government’s Covid-19 Resurgence Support Payment as IRD’s website is down “for maintenance”.

Yesterday Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s advised that businesses in need of support were to apply for the payment via IRD’s MyIR login portal.

However, the website appears to be down this weekend.

A message on its website reads: “The service is offline for routine maintenance. Try again later”, causing fustration for business owners.

The system upgrade has been in effect since Friday evening and not due to be finished and the website back online until Monday.

Phone lines are also said to be currently unavailable.

National Party shadow treasurer Andrew Bayly is calling for Inland Revenue to scrap the maintenance plans and reopen launch its website to help businesses, particularly those in Auckland, who face the financial burden of an alert level 3 lockdown – the second in a span of a month.

“It is essential the IRD opens to help people to calculate and lodge claims for their Resurgence Support Payment,” Bayly said.

“The latest lockdown will be a devastating blow for businesses not only in Auckland but across the country.”

Bayly said IRD needed to sort out their systems immediately to ensure businesses could access immediate help.

“During times of financial stress it is vital that people are able to call government officials at IRD to discuss their options.

“IRD needs to sort out their systems immediately so New Zealanders can access the help they need.”

The Herald has contact Inland Revenue Department for comment.

A handful of businesses has contacted the Herald this morning voicing their frustration at IRD’s website outage.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson has confirmed that since the latest lockdown triggers the wage subsidy scheme and that applies nationwide. This will be paid in a lump sum.

He said businesses can receive both the wage subsidy scheme and the new alert level 2 subsidy scheme.

The Government has budgeted $400-$500 million for the coming seven days, Robertson said.

Based on previous lockdowns Auckland level 3 and rest on NZ at level 2 cost the economy about $440 million a week, according to ASB.

More to come.

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