Q: We have an employee who transferred from our overseas entity to our NZ company and bought with them 450 hours of annual leave from their overseas employment. The transfer was in Jan-2021.

The employee is now terminating, are we able to pay the 450 hours of annual leave at an agreed rate or does it have to paid at Holiday’s Act rates.

A: If you brought across leave from another country it is an agreed term and nothing to do with NZ legislation.  But since they have been working in NZ have the earned NZ annual holiday entitlement?

Hopefully the 450 hours was coded differently from annual holiday entitlement earned under the Holidays act as they are two different things and should not be mixed.

If you can clearly identified the hours that were brought across they are paid at the agreed rate and taxed as an extra pay.