Provisional tax has a reputation, and not a good one. For a lot of New Zealand business owners it is the tax that arrives bigger than expected, at a time when the cash is not there to meet it. It catches out more owners than any other part of the tax system.

Here is the reassuring part: provisional...

You did the work. You sent the invoice. And now you wait.

If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. For most New Zealand business owners, the gap between finishing a job and seeing the money land is one of the biggest drains on cashflow there is. It is winter now, the time of year when slow payer...

Winter has a way of slowing things down. The rush of year end is behind you, the long summer days feel like a different lifetime, and the diary is a little less frantic. It is tempting to put your head down and wait for spring.

But that quiet is exactly why mid-winter is one of the best times of th...