"No employee of any kind of business, including the professional, competent and hardworking staff of Inland Revenue, should have to put up with the type of nasty and vicious personal attacks which have occurred in this book.”
Graham Holland, Commissioner of Inland Revenue.
Dave Henderson
This book will make your blood boil. It is the almost unbelievable account of Christchurch businessman Dave Henderson's five year battle with the Inland Revenue Department. It tells of a government department that is out of control, with little respect for the law and for common decency.
What started as a routine GST tax return, seeking a sizeable refund, turned into a nightmare. The IRD assessed Mr Henderson's company for a million dollars, refused to explain the basis for their assessments and drove him into bankruptcy.
Determined to resist the IRD's bullying tactics, Dave Henderson withstood its continued efforts to drive him further under. This book tells that story. It describes, in graphic detail, the actions, evasions and convolutions practised by a department with almost limitless resources and no-one to monitor its behaviour.
Armed with a recording device, Dave Henderson was able to capture meetings and telephone conversations with senior IRD officers who display an anti-enterprise attitude. More frightening is the massive amount of effort that Dave Henderson had to commit to get successive Ministers of Revenue to even consider his plight.
This book is a "must read" for every taxpayer. It is especially significant for anyone who is self-employed, or who owns or operates a small business. Dave Henderson's case is far from resolved. The people at the IRD who meted out this horrific treatment to him still work there today. All the systems that allowed this to happen are still in place. There is no-one to turn to for help.
What happened to Dave Henderson could happen to you tomorrow. Dave Henderson is right, we should all be very afraid.
Where's Dave Now?
