This makes for interesting reading, a lot of us either have a student loan or have children with student loans. I have copied this directly from  an email  I have received from the IRD. If you are interested in receiving these emails,  please let me know and I can forward the link to you where you can subscibe to their RSS feeds.

Mr Dunne said that the bill contained two important features.

The bill proposes to broaden the definition of “Income” for student loan repayment purposes to align more closely with the definition of income used for determining entitlement to Working for Families tax credits. Mr Dunne explained that the definition of “Income” is important to ensure that a borrower’s repayment obligation accurately reflects their ability to repay.

Mr Dunne said that the bill proposes to introduce an information match with the New Zealand Customs Service to locate borrowers in serious default when they enter or leave New Zealand. A key difficulty to collecting repayments from overseas-based borrowers is a lack of contact details which prevents Inland Revenue from engaging with this group.

If you would like to read the full media statement then go to http://taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz