Hearing impaired residents across the Bay of Plenty are set to benefit from seven newly released online videos to help make tax compliance easier.

Revenue Minister and Te Puke MP Todd McClay announced the release of the videos on the Inland Revenue site today.

Sign language videos are now available on the IRD website.

He says this feature is important for helping hearing impaired customers in Rotorua, Te Puke and the wider Bay of Plenty.

'Sign Language is the third official language in New Zealand with around 42,000 of us using it every day,” says Mr McClay.

'It is important that Inland Revenue communicates directly with customers, and doing this in their preferred language helps build constructive and ongoing relationships.”

Todd says the hearing-impaired community told Inland Revenue that although information is available on its website, many within the community prefer to communicate and learn using sign language.

'Inland Revenue is committed to developing services that ensure all customers can manage their tax requirements more quickly and easily. Responding to the hearing-impaired community's request proves this commitment.”

'The first video released was about Working for Families Tax Credits and it received fantastic feedback. Since then the department has released a further six which are a series called an ‘introduction to business' and there are more on the way.”

'Inland Revenue has put a lot of effort into making tax compliance simpler, easier and quicker for our customers. It is important to recognise that people have different needs, and these videos and the ongoing work with the hearing impaired community, are another example of this,” says Todd.

The videos are available now on Inland Revenue's new Multilingual YouTube channel here.