Student Loan Scheme Bill

I will take just a very brief call on Part 3, and hopefully the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Revenue, will be able to respond. This part is about the issue of excess repayments, which we touched on in Part 1. I am pleased to see that there will be some clarity around this point. As someone who overpaid her student loan, I am pleased to see that there is an obligation—

💬 Paul Quinn: A donation.

—trust me, I say to Mr Quinn, it was not a donation—in Part 3 on the Inland Revenue Department to contact student loan holders and inform them that they have met their obligations under the student loan scheme. In my particular case, I felt that perhaps I had reached the point where I might have paid back my loan. I rang the Inland Revenue Department to find out the status of my loan, only to be told that I had overpaid it by about $1,000.

I have a question for the Minister. In the past, particularly when I have done my income tax returns, if I have owed the Inland Revenue Department money the department has wanted it on very short notice. In fact, it has been quite tight time frames within which I needed to meet my obligations to the Inland Revenue Department to make sure that I paid any tax that was underpaid. It took 4 or 5 months to get back from the Inland Revenue Department the money that I had overpaid on my student loan. In fact, the department got quite snippy with me when I asked whether the money could possibly be paid back earlier. We heard from my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway earlier in the debate, who also said that recently, just this year, he paid back his student loan. He found out that he had overpaid it by about $500. When he asked when he could have his money back, he was told: “Well, not at least until October.”

I understand the Inland Revenue Department is a very busy department, but it seems to me that for its own credibility, when it comes down very firm and very hard on people who owe the department money, that perhaps when the opposite case is true—in my case the department had not even informed me that I had met my obligations, that I had overpaid my student loan, and that I could stop paying—it would seem nice if it was reciprocal and the Inland Revenue Department was as speedy in returning money to people who have overpaid as it is with people who have underpaid. I think the Minister now has an answer, so I am happy to sit down.

I do not want to deter the Committee unduly, but I am comfortable answering very quick questions if we are to proceed in this manner. In response to the member’s question, the short answer is that from the time that the excess payment has been identified, the Inland Revenue Department has a 6-month period within which to negotiate with the borrower about whether the money is to be offset or repaid.

As to the point that is behind the question, which is whether that means that the Inland Revenue Department’s determination to seek payment is matched by an equal determination to make payment, I can simply advise the member that it is a “best endeavours” situation from the point that a settlement is reached.

Part 3 agreed to.

Part 4 agreed to.

Part 5 Matters of general application and miscellaneous matters