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  1. Home
  2. On a benefit
  3. Changes and income
  4. Declare income
  5. Wages

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On a benefit

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Wages

Any income you earn for work.

Select the type of wages you earn to find out if you have to declare these:

  • Wages stay the same
  • Wages change
  • Casual or one-off wages

How to declare your wages

The easiest way to tell us about your earnings is to use MyMSD.

Go to My MSD login

Watch the video below to find out how to do this:

Declaring your wages in MyMSD
View transcript of 'Declaring your wages in MyMSD' video

Narrator [00:00:02] "If you're getting benefit payments from us while you're working, you need to let us know how much you're earning each week. We call this declaring wages."  

[Woman smiles and shows 2 thumbs up. The words 'Are you getting Work and Income payments?' appears on the screen. A calendar week showing 'Mon' to 'Sun' appears and a mouse pointer moves over each day. A woman stands and smiles at the camera.]

Narrator [00:00:12]: The amount you declare will continue every week until you let us know it has stopped or changed. You need to tell us about changes to your wages before 6pm on Friday. The income you tell us about must cover Monday to Sunday for that week, so if you're going to work during the weekend you need to add that amount in too.

[A calendar showing 3 weeks of 'Mon' to 'Fri' appears with a pink circle over the number '5' in the Friday of the first week. The calendar day for '5 Fri' pops up and there is an entry of 'Declare weekly earnings' at the time of 6pm. A calendar week showing 'Mon' to 'Sun' appears, with a pink circle over the number '5' on the 'Fri' day. A mouse pointer moves from Monday to Sunday. There's also a horizontal line at the top of the calendar week that goes from 'Mon' to 'Sun' with the words 'Full week's income']

Narrator [00:00:32]: To make it easy for you, you can do this on MyMSD. Log into MyMSD, go to 'Declare wages', select the week your wages started from and tell us about your wages in the 'My wages' section.

[A laptop showing the MyMSD homepage appears. The MyMSD login screen appears with client number and PIN entered and a mouse pointer clicks on the 'Log in' button. The MyMSD home screen appears and a mouse pointer clicks on 'Declare wages' in the left-hand navigation bar. The MyMSD 'Declare wages' screen appears and a mouse pointer clicks on the 'Select week' field under the' My wages changed from' heading. A month calendar from 'Mon' to 'Sun' appears and a mouse pointer moves across the calendar and clicks 'Next'. The MyMSD 'Declare wages' screen appears and a mouse pointer moves to the 'My wages' heading.]

Narrator [00:00:50]: If these wages are for a job you've declared before, you can select it from the list. If it's for a new job you haven't declared before, select 'Add employer'.

[The MyMSD 'Declare wages' screen appears and a mouse pointer clicks on 'Add employer' under the 'My wages' heading. An 'Add employer' modal pops up, the employer name 'The Corner Cafe' fills in and a mouse pointer clicks on 'Continue'.]

Narrator [00:1:00]" Next, tell us either how much you were paid for the whole week, or your hourly rate and how many hours you worked. If you get paid fortnightly or monthly, you'll need to break this down to the weekly amount and enter that. If you didn't do any work for that employer that week, enter zero.

[A modal appears with 'The Corner Cafe' at the top, a 'My income (before tax)' field, 2 fields under this, and 'hour' and 'week' buttons. A mouse pointer clicks on the 'hour' button, '$25.00' is entered into the 'My income (before tax)' field and '20' is entered into the 'hourly' field under this. A mouse pointer clicks on the 'week' button. The words '$1,000 Paid a fortnight = $500 Paid weekly' appear and the words '$2,000 Paid monthly = $500 Paid weekly' appear. A mouse pointer clicks into the 'hourly' field and changes '20' to '00'.]

Narrator [00:01:18]: Finally, check you've entered all your information correctly, then hit 'Submit'. All done! You've submitted your wages. Your MyMSD account will update once this has been processed.

[A 'Review and submit' screen appears with a heading 'My wages changed on the week of' and the date as 'Monday, 5 August - Sunday 11 August', the employer name 'The Corner Cafe', the amount for that week as '$500.00 a week' and 'Total before tax' as '$500.00'. A mouse pointer clicks 'Submit'. The screen changes to a woman doing 2 thumbs up. The screen changes to the MyMSD logo and a circle to the right of this. A mouse pointer clicks on the circle and a green tick appears.]

Narrator [00:01:32]: More than one job? Declare those wages too. And if things have changed and you haven't worked, let us know in MyMSD.

[The words 'Multiple jobs' appear with a circle to the right of this. The words 'Declare wages' appear with a circle to the right of this. A mouse pointer clicks on the circle next to 'Multiple jobs' and a green tick appears. The mouse pointer clicks on the circle next to 'Declare wages' and a green tick appears. A woman appears standing to the right of the words and smiling at the camera. The Ministry of Social Development logo, the Work and Income logo and 'www.workandincome.govt.nz' appear on the screen.]

If you can't use MyMSD

Call us or come into one of our service centres.

If you're declaring income from self-employment, make sure you mention you're self-employed.

What happens if you don't tell us

We match information with other government departments, this includes earning information with IRD.

Sharing your information

If you don't tell us about income you earn we may not pay you enough. Or we may pay you too much and you'll have to pay the debt back.

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