Small world

Had an amusing phone call with IRD yesterday.

Rang them up to activate my new IR File account (and kudos to IRD – I love what I can now access online) and the staffer did that for me. He then asked if there was anything else he could do, and I had a small refund owing to me from a few years ago (I lost the cheque they sent so it has been sitting there as a credit balance). So I asked if I could get the credit balance paid out.

As we were about to do that, I inquired whether it might be better to transfer the credit balance from my personal account to my company account. This would be beneficial in reducing net interest. As I am 100% owner of my company, this is meant to be possible.

The staffer then needed to look up my company in the Companies Register, to check this out and did so. Then he came back on the line having discovered it also owns and trades as Curia Market Research (my polling company). He informed me that he actually used to work for me as a pollster in the evenings.

Now that is a very small world – discovering the IRD staffer used to work for you. Unfortunately for me it also meant he could not complete my request as he was conflicted so I was transferred to another staffer (who was also very helpful).