More than 55,000 motorists overcharged for ACC levy

Brian from New Lynn

Of the $330,000 that has been over-collected, more than half is yet to be repaid through a refund process.
A proactively released document by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency has revealed the details of what went wrong.
Waka Kotahi advised Transport Minister Michael Wood in September that 55,865 people overpaid the levy when they renewed their vehicle registrations earlier this year.
The ACC motor vehicle levy helps cover the cost of accidents on public roads involving moving vehicles. The levies are calculated to ensure the cost of injuries can be covered, including those needing lifelong support.
This is collected by Waka Kotahi on behalf of ACC when people pay to register their vehicles.
But changes to the levy rates, which came into effect in July, were not updated in the system used to calculate people’s registration fees.
“As licence reminders are sent up to six weeks in advance of the licence renewal date, during the six week period prior to the new rates coming into effect, the notices were sent to customers using the old ACC levy rates,” advice to Wood said.
Organisational changes across Waka Kotahi and ACC in recent years meant information about the levy change was not communicated to the correct team in time, the advice said.
This created the delay in updating the system used to calculate registration fees.
“With the aim of maintaining the integrity of the levy collection system and process, a decision was made in consultation with ACC to front-foot the error and communicate with those customers who were overcharged,” the advice said.
Letters about the mix-up have been sent out to those affected with instructions on how to request a refund.
ACC head of health partnerships Dr John Robson said $330,812 was over-charged, which was equivalent to about 0.07 per cent of the levy to be collected.
He said ACC has repaid $153,469 as of the end of October and Waka Kotahi will continue to process refunds for as long as they are received.
“Both ACC and Waka Kotahi have updated their Memorandum of Understanding for levy collection to ensure roles and responsibilities are clearly understood to ensure this does not happen again.”
Waka Kotahi also made assurances in its update to the Minister that procedures were being updated to prevent the problem from happening again.
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