u/Heaps_Ben

The Government has announced a proposal to lift the individual FIF de minimis threshold from $50k to $100k from the 2026-27 tax year.

I wrote up a deeper breakdown here: https://heaps.nz/blog/fif-threshold-100k

My short read: this is a good change, but it is more of a catch-up than a real reset.

A few comparisons:

• If the original $50k threshold had tracked CPI since 2007, it would be about $81k today
• If it had tracked average wages, it would be about $98k-$99k
• If it had tracked NZ residential property prices, it would be about $110k
• If it had tracked the S&P 500 ETF in NZD terms, it would be about $437k

So $100k looks generous against inflation, almost exactly right against wages, and still tiny against the global assets many direct investors actually buy.

The other interesting part is the proposed RAM change for unlisted foreign shares. That seems more important for startup employees, founders, angel investors, and people with private overseas company shares. It could stop people being taxed every year under FDR on illiquid shares they cannot sell.

My main concern is still the cliff. At $99k cost basis, FIF can be irrelevant. At $101k, you can suddenly be dealing with FDR, comparative value, exchange rates, opening values, quick-sale adjustments, and paid tax reports/accountants.

A smoother option would be something like keeping the $100k de minimis, but giving people an allowance for the first $5k of FIF income once they cross it. Since FDR is generally 5% of opening value, that would soften the jump around the threshold.

Not tax advice, obviously. The proposal is not enacted yet, and the transitional wording will matter.

Curious how others are thinking about this. Does $100k feel like enough, or just the number we should have had already?

I've seen some clearly biased comparison sites advertised on social media so I wanted to get a clear picture of the trends and performance.

Data is from 31 March which was a low point for most funds. The total world index has increased about 17% since. Fee vs Performance correlation is best compared within a risk category as conservative funds skew lower fee.

• In the aggressive risk categories 5-7, index funds outperform and have less variance.
• Big banks and actively managed funds still dominate KiwiSaver market share
• Fisher Funds is losing AUM at a very high rate
• SuperLife(Smartshares) was the OG NZ index KiwiSaver provider, but the low-fee/passive crown now feels like it’s drifting toward Simplicity, Kernel, and InvestNow.

Stats page: https://heaps.nz/kiwisaver-stats
See where your fund sits in the fund explorer: https://heaps.nz/kiwisaver

Let me know if you want to see anything else. There may be errors so always verify data yourself before making any financial decisions.

I've updated the Heaps kiwisaver tool.

https://heaps.nz/kiwisaver is a page where you can compare funds vs your current fund.

https://heaps.nz/kiwisaver-stats is a dashboard I quickly put together to show the state of the market and some interesting breakdowns and trends.

• In most time periods and risk categories index funds perform better.
• Fisher Funds is seeing huge outflows.
• The OG index fund provider, SuperLife, is losing out to leaner options like Kernel and InvestNow.
• The vast majority of AUM is still actively managed.
• The international funds are likely to look even stronger on the next quarterly reports as March was a particularly bad month.

Anything else you want to see?

^(There may be errors in the data so always verify figures yourself before making any financial decisions.)