$418,000 on 20,000 Youtube views!

The Taxpayers Union revealed:

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. Responding to the release of the information by the IRD, Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, says:

“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.”

So IRD spent $20 per view. The intentions may be good, but the expenditure is not justified.