What is a Foreign Investment Fund (FIF)?
Like our users, the tax discovery team had to learn all of the nitty-gritty rules about tax obligations when buying shares in overseas companies (like what you buy through Hatch). The FIF tax rules only apply if you have over $50,000 NZD invested, or if you have earned more than $200 in dividends this tax year. If FIF rules apply you must fill out an IR3 form.
Like our users, the tax discovery team had to learn all of the nitty-gritty rules about tax obligations when buying shares in overseas companies (like what you buy through Hatch). The FIF tax rules only apply if you have over $50,000 NZD invested, or if you have earned more than $200 in dividends this tax year. If FIF rules apply you must fill out an IR3 form.
If you have over $50,000NZD invested the maths is a little more tricky, so people will either pay an account to do the work, or they're a maths wizz and they'll figure it out themselves.
Previous tax solutions
The previous year Hatch had a helpful article about tax time and showing how to fill out at IR3 form. Hatch also offered a FIF Report service to all Hatch users (via a CTA on help article and email), if they paid $50 they would receive an Excel document with two final numbers that they could use to file a tax return. We started by reaching out to customers who bought a FIF report the previous year to see how we could improve upon last year's experience.
The previous year Hatch had a helpful article about tax time and showing how to fill out at IR3 form. Hatch also offered a FIF Report service to all Hatch users (via a CTA on help article and email), if they paid $50 they would receive an Excel document with two final numbers that they could use to file a tax return. We started by reaching out to customers who bought a FIF report the previous year to see how we could improve upon last year's experience.
The Process
This included: interviews with past FIF solutions purchasers, design (new in-product tax flow & FIF Report PDF), educational tax quiz, an x2 round of interviews to validate the solution, content creation for our help center (intercom) and learn article (website), campaign landing page at hatchinvest.nz/tax, communication to customers (FB, targeted intercom messages and emails), and finally measuring our success once tax time was over for 2022!
Work completed whilst at Hatch