In late 2016 IRD published a reasonable if somewhat wordy policy for communicating with stakeholders by email.
Some time later, as part of a general website refresh, IRD removed the link to its policy, and refuses to load it until it has completed another review
To summarise:
- A customer, agent or nominated person can give telephone permission to communicate by email
- Subject lines should be meaningful
- IRD will reply to an email without deleting the original ‘string’
- Confidential material in an attachment can have an agreed password, but no zipping or ‘encryption’
- Working spreadsheets or other documents can be emailed if they make it easier for a case to progress (which of course it always will)
- IRD staff best practice recommends turning on ‘read receipts’ ,and where appropriate “out of office” messages (and we should extend the same courtesy)
I am not aware of any substantive change to the principles and the Commissioners office has confirmed they remain in force
Here is a link to IRD’s previously published policies in Owens Tax archives.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oyzzaozodzsy7af/AAB7m6OhrlFBzKihH23G_kfta?dl=0