It's tax refund time and the IRD estimates it's got $39 million of Tauranga taxpayers' money to hand over.

If the entire population of Tauranga claims the overpaid tax owing to them, more than $39 million might be injected into the local economy, the IRD says.

It's tax return time at IRD

'It's a shame that there are so many people in Tauranga who don't take advantage of these refunds,” says NZ Tax Refunds CEO Cilla Hegarty. 'As 93 per cent of our customers have overpaid their taxes in the last five years there is a good chance that kiwis are owed some of their money back. If everyone got what was owing to them their region's economy would receive a major boost.

'We've already paid millions of dollars in tax refunds to workers across the country. It's our favourite time of year and I suspect the retailers in Tauranga might be opening their cash registers a bit more this month” says Cilla.

This week IRD released the 2014 tax refunds and WooHoo NZ Tax Refunds began paying out the majority of their customer's tax refunds.

Region Population, Employment rate

Auckland Region 1,415,550 91.9 $483,931,247

Wellington Region 471,315 92.8 $162,705,479

Christchurch City 341,469 94.9 $120,548,118

Dunedin City 118,683 92.5 $40,838,820

Hamilton City 141,612 90.5 $47,675,096

New Plymouth District 74,184 94.4 $26,049,993

Palmerston North City 80,079 92.4 $27,525,394

Nelson Region 46,437 94.1 $16,255,364

Tauranga City 114,789 92.4 $39,456,193

Based on 2013 census figures, the numbers are an unaudited calculation made by multiplying the population x the regional employment rate x 0.93 (the percentage of NZ Tax Refund's customers who overpaid their tax in the last 5 years x $400 - the average kiwis have overpaid their tax.