The Telecommunications Act 2001 stipulates that a specific group of liable persons are required to pay the TDL each financial year. ‘Liable persons’ is defined as a person who provides a telecommunications service in New Zealand by means of operating a component of a public telecommunications network.
In Part 3 of the Act this group is further refined to include only those parties that earn more than $10 million in telecommunications revenue in the year preceding the year under review. The Commission refers to parties that meet all these criteria as being ‘qualifying liable persons’.
In a regular year, section 82 of the Act requires liable persons to provide the Commission with their gross telecommunications revenue for the year preceding the year under review. This information needs to be provided 60 working days before the end of the financial year(which is the year under review) meaning the information is usually due in early April. The Commission uses this information to confirm the liable persons who qualify to pay for the TDL (ie, the qualifying liable persons).
In March 2012, the Commission commenced a development process to support the identification of qualifying liable persons. At that time, the Commission gave notice that due to the delays caused by the development process, liable persons would have a reasonable excuse not to comply with the requirements in section 82 of the Act, for the 2011/12 TDL LAD. The information would be sought at a later date.
On 19 April 2012, a draft notification document was released that identified a group of potentially liable persons, and included the key tests the Commission will use to review and confirm the status these persons. The final notification was released on 24 July 2012, after which the Commission sought the information usually required under section 82. This information for some liable persons was already available to the Commission as it had been provided in the 2010/11 TDL LAD. For other liable persons the Commission has sought the information directly from them. While the Commission is still in the process of confirming the qualifying liable persons for the 2011/12 TDL LAD, the notification documents (draft and final) and related submissions are provided below.
