IRD exercise video

The IRD has spent more than $418,000 of taxpayer money on a campaign featuring a YouTube video of 80’s style aerobic exercises to promote filing of tax returns. 

You paid for it, so you might as well enjoy it:

It is essential that the public are well informed on how to comply with their tax obligations. We say that spending nearly half a million on a video of people dancing round in leotards is a strange way to achieve it.

While the videos cost $41,000 the IRD won’t tell us what the remaining amount was spend spent on. We presume it is online advertising, which has only resulted in 20,000 views, less than the audience of daytime television.

Interestingly the IRD released the information publicly and issued a press release at the same time as the information was sent to the Taxpayers’ Union. That is highly unusual and indicates that officials are trying to put their spin on a bad-looking story. For example, they credit the videos for 36,000 more online registrations, but acknowledge that the YouTube video has only about half that number of viewers.

The IRD's response to the Taxpayers' Union request for informant under the Official Information Act 1982 is below.