Calculator Glossary for New Zealanders

Plain-English definitions for the 265 terms used across our mortgage, tax, finance, insurance, and everyday calculators. Current to 2026/27 NZ rates.

A

Abatement Tax: Progressive reduction in Working for Families entitlement as family income rises above a threshold.
ACC earner levy Tax: 1.75% of pay (2026/27), capped at $156,641 of liable earnings; funds non-work injury cover and is taken via PAYE.
Accident-only cover Insurance: Pet or health policy that pays out for injuries from accidents but not for illness.
Adjusted income Tax: Income after deducting the $21,000 living allowance in the NZ child support formula.
Agreed value Insurance: Sum the policyholder and insurer formally agree the property is worth ahead of any claim.
AIM Tax: Accounting Income Method for provisional tax; tax of 98% of period profit, paid each GST cycle.
Alternative day Tax: Paid day in lieu owed to an employee who works on a public holiday.
Amortisation Mortgage Finance: Equal loan payments that gradually shift from mostly interest to mostly principal over the loan term.
Amortisation schedule Finance: Table showing each loan repayment split into principal, interest, and remaining balance.
Annual leave Tax: Statutory four weeks of paid time off per year for NZ employees.
Annual multi-trip policy Insurance: Single travel-insurance premium that covers multiple trips inside a 12-month window.
Annualised income Tax: Weekly or monthly pay scaled to a yearly figure, usually by multiplying weekly pay by 52.
Annuity Finance: A series of equal payments at regular intervals, like KiwiSaver contributions or loan repayments.
ANOVA Essentials: Statistical test that compares the means of three or more groups at once.
Asset turnover Finance: Revenue divided by total assets; how efficiently a business turns its assets into sales.
Attributing interest Tax: Foreign investment income (dividends, interest) included in a FIF investor's taxable income.
Average weekly earnings (AWE) Tax: Average weekly pay over the past 12 months; sets holiday pay if higher than ordinary weekly pay.

B

Back-end DTI Finance: All debt payments (housing plus other debts) as a percentage of gross monthly income.
Balloon payment Finance: Large lump-sum payment due at the end of a loan, after a period of smaller payments.
Benefit period Insurance: How long a policy keeps paying monthly benefits after a successful income-protection claim.
Bessel function Essentials: Mathematical functions used in physics and engineering to solve cylindrical differential equations.
Beta Finance: Measure of how much a stock moves relative to the market; beta of 1 moves with the market.
Binomial distribution Essentials: Probability of getting a given number of successes in a fixed number of independent yes/no trials.
BMI Essentials: Body Mass Index; weight in kg divided by height in metres squared, a rough health screen.
BMR Essentials: Basal Metabolic Rate; calories your body burns at complete rest.
Body corporate Mortgage: Shared owners' entity for an apartment or unit-title block, charging fees for common-area upkeep.
Bond (finance) Finance: Debt security paying periodic coupon interest plus the face value back at maturity.
Bonferroni correction Essentials: Adjustment that lowers the significance threshold when running multiple statistical tests at once.
Bracket (tax) Tax: Income band taxed at a single rate; NZ has five brackets from 10.5% to 39% in 2026/27.
Break fee Mortgage: Charge for exiting a fixed-rate mortgage early; depends on rate movement and time remaining.
Breakeven Finance: The point where total revenue equals total costs and profit is zero.
Bright-line test Tax Mortgage: NZ rule taxing the gain on residential property sold within 2 years (10 for some pre-2024 sales).
BSTC Tax: Best Start Tax Credit; weekly Working for Families payment for families with young children.
Build cost per sqm Insurance: Dollar amount per square metre needed to rebuild your house from scratch in today's market.
Business use proportion Tax: Percentage of a mixed-use asset (boat, bach) used for business rather than private purposes.

C

CAC Finance: Customer acquisition cost; marketing spend required to win one new customer.
CAGR Finance: Compound annual growth rate; the smoothed yearly return that takes a value from start to finish.
Cap rate Mortgage: Annual net operating income as a percentage of property purchase price; the standard yield metric.
Capital value (CV) Mortgage: Council's valuation of a property used to set rates; refreshed every three years across NZ.
CAPM Finance: Capital Asset Pricing Model; expected return = risk-free rate + beta × (market return − risk-free rate).
Chattels Tax: Moveable assets in a rental (carpet, oven, blinds); depreciate faster than the building itself.
Child support liable parent Tax: Parent legally required to contribute payments toward the child's living costs.
CKD-EPI equation Essentials: Modern formula NZ labs use to estimate kidney filtration rate (eGFR) from blood creatinine.
Clawback Tax: Reduction or recovery of a benefit or tax credit when income or other thresholds are exceeded.
CM method (FIF) Tax: Cost Method; treats 5% of cost base as taxable FIF income for unlisted foreign shares.
Comparison rate Finance Mortgage: Headline rate plus all fixed fees, expressed as a single annual figure for fair loan comparison.
Compound interest Finance: Interest earned on the original principal plus all previously earned interest.
Confidence interval Essentials: Range of values likely to contain the true population value, at a stated confidence level.
Contribution holiday Tax: Old name for a KiwiSaver savings suspension, before the 2019 rebrand.
Contribution margin Finance: Revenue per unit minus variable cost per unit; how much each sale contributes to fixed costs.
Cost base Tax Finance: Original purchase price of an asset, adjusted for depreciation or capital improvements.
Cost of debt Finance: Interest rate a company pays on its borrowed money.
Cost of equity Finance: Return shareholders require for putting capital into the business; usually estimated via CAPM.
Cost of goods sold (COGS) Finance: Direct costs to produce goods sold (materials, labour, manufacturing); excludes overhead.
Coupon Finance: Periodic interest payment on a bond, expressed as a percentage of face value.
CPM Finance: Cost per thousand ad impressions; what advertisers pay per 1,000 views.
Current yield Finance: Annual coupon income divided by the bond's current market price.
CV method (FIF) Tax: Comparative Value Method; uses actual gains and dividends, capped against FDR for listed shares.

D

De minimis (FBT) Tax: Small-value benefit threshold below which FBT does not apply.
Debt consolidation Finance: Combining multiple high-interest debts into one lower-rate loan with a single payment.
Debt-service ratio (DSR) Mortgage: Monthly debt repayments as a percentage of gross income; banks usually want under 35-40%.
Debt-to-income (DTI) Mortgage Finance: Total monthly debt payments divided by gross monthly income; a key lender affordability test.
Default rate Finance: Higher interest rate the lender charges once a borrower falls behind on repayments.
Degrees of freedom Essentials: Number of independent values free to vary in a dataset; affects most statistical test results.
Deposit (mortgage) Mortgage: Upfront cash toward a property purchase, typically 10-20%; bigger deposits unlock better rates.
Depreciation Finance Tax: Annual recognised drop in an asset's value; a non-cash expense that reduces taxable profit.
DIME formula Insurance: Debt + Income replacement + Mortgage + Education; a quick way to size life-insurance cover.
Discount rate Finance: Interest rate used to convert future cash flows into today's value.
Disposable income Finance: Money left after paying essential living costs (housing, utilities, transport, insurance, debt).
Dividend Finance Tax: Distribution of company profit to shareholders; resident NZ dividends usually carry imputation credits.
DRR method (FIF) Tax: Deemed Rate of Return; an IRD-set rate (around 8-9%) applied to non-ordinary foreign shares.

E

EBIT Finance: Earnings before interest and tax; revenue minus COGS, opex, and depreciation.
EBITDA Finance: Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation; a proxy for operating cash.
EBT Finance: Earnings before tax; EBIT minus interest expense.
Effective annual rate (EAR) Finance: Annualised rate that accounts for compounding frequency; useful for comparing loan products.
Effective rate (mortgage) Mortgage: Headline rate plus fees and any low-equity premium, expressed as one annual figure.
Effective tax rate Tax: Total tax as a percentage of total income; lower than the marginal rate due to step brackets.
eGFR Essentials: Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate; the standard NZ-lab kidney function reading.
Elasticity of demand Finance: How sensitive customer demand is to a price change; greater than 1 is elastic.
Elasticity of supply Finance: How quickly producers can change output in response to a price change.
Emergency fund Finance: Liquid savings of 3-6 months of essential expenses, kept aside for income disruption.
Employer contribution (KiwiSaver) Tax: Compulsory employer match on KiwiSaver-member salaries: 3.5% from 1 April 2026, rising to 4% from 1 April 2028 (subject to ESCT).
Endurance zone Essentials: Heart-rate zone 2 (60-70% of max), used for aerobic base-building.
Equity (home) Mortgage: Difference between what the home is worth today and what is still owed on the mortgage.
Equity risk premium Finance: Expected market return minus risk-free rate; the extra return demanded for owning shares.
ESCT Tax: Employer Superannuation Contribution Tax; tax on the employer's KiwiSaver contribution.
Excess (insurance) Insurance: Amount the insured pays out of pocket on a claim before the insurer pays the rest.

F

F-statistic Essentials: Test statistic in ANOVA that compares between-group variance to within-group variance.
Face value (bond) Finance: Principal amount printed on a bond, paid back to the holder at maturity.
Fair Dividend Rate (FDR) Tax: FIF method treating 5% of opening market value as taxable income; default for listed foreign shares.
FBT Tax: Fringe Benefit Tax; employer tax on non-cash perks (vehicles, low-interest loans, subsidies).
FBT attribution Tax: Allocating an FBT charge to the specific employee who received the benefit.
Fee drag Insurance Finance: Cumulative effect of fund fees eating into investment returns over time.
Fertile window Essentials: The 5-6 days in a cycle when pregnancy is possible (5 days before ovulation plus the day itself).
FIF Tax: Foreign Investment Fund; non-NZ shares and certain offshore holdings taxed under special rules.
First Home Withdrawal Mortgage Tax: Permission to withdraw KiwiSaver balance (minus $1,000) toward buying your first home.
Fixed rate (mortgage) Mortgage: Mortgage rate locked for a set period, typically 1-5 years in NZ.
Floating rate Mortgage: Mortgage rate that moves with bank cost of funds and the OCR, usually reviewed monthly.
Follicular phase Essentials: First half of the menstrual cycle, before ovulation.
Fortnightly Mortgage Finance: Every two weeks; the default repayment frequency for most NZ home loans.
Fraction (reduced) Essentials: Fraction simplified to lowest terms (3/4 instead of 6/8).
Front-end DTI Finance Mortgage: Housing cost as a percentage of gross monthly income; lenders typically want this under 28%.
FTC Tax: Family Tax Credit; the core per-child weekly payment in Working for Families.
Future value (FV) Finance: What an investment will be worth at a future date after compounding.

G

Gearing Mortgage: Proportion of property funded with debt rather than equity; higher gearing means higher risk.
GFR Essentials: Glomerular Filtration Rate; how much blood the kidneys filter per minute.
GPA Essentials: Grade Point Average; weighted average of grades across papers, expressed on a scale (often 0-9).
Gradient descent Essentials: Optimisation algorithm that nudges model parameters toward the value that minimises error.
Gross income Tax: Total earnings before tax, KiwiSaver, ACC, student loan, and other deductions.
Gross margin Finance: Gross profit as a percentage of revenue; what's left after paying for goods sold.
Gross pay Tax: Total compensation before PAYE, ACC, KiwiSaver, and student loan deductions.
Gross profit Finance: Revenue minus cost of goods sold; before opex, depreciation, interest, and tax.
Gross yield (rental) Mortgage: Annual rental income as a percentage of property purchase price; ignores running costs.
GST Tax: Goods and Services Tax; flat 15% consumption tax on most NZ goods and services.

H

Hire purchase Finance: Retail finance where the buyer takes goods home and pays the price plus interest over time.
Holiday pay Tax: Pay for annual leave, calculated as the higher of ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Hypergeometric distribution Essentials: Probability for sampling without replacement from a finite population.
Hypotenuse Essentials: Longest side of a right-angled triangle, opposite the right angle.

I

IETC Tax: Independent Earner Tax Credit; small annual credit for low-to-mid earners with no Working for Families.
Inequality Essentials: Mathematical statement using <, >, ≤, or ≥ to compare two expressions.
Inflation Finance: Rate at which the general price level rises over time, eroding the purchasing power of money.
Intercept Essentials: Y-value where a line crosses the y-axis; the b in y = mx + b.
Interest deductibility Tax Mortgage: Percentage of rental-mortgage interest a landlord can deduct against rental income.
Interest-only (loan) Mortgage Finance: Loan structure where repayments cover interest only; principal is unchanged at term-end.
Internal rate of return (IRR) Finance: Discount rate at which an investment's NPV equals zero; the project's break-even return.
IRD Tax: Inland Revenue Department; NZ's tax authority.
IWTC Tax: In-Work Tax Credit; weekly Working for Families payment tied to working a minimum number of hours.

K

Karvonen formula Essentials: Heart-rate-zone formula using max heart rate minus resting heart rate.
KiwiSaver Tax: NZ workplace retirement savings scheme. From 1 April 2026, minimum employee and employer contributions are both 3.5% of gross pay (rising to 4% in 2028); the government adds 25c per $1, capped at $260.72/yr.
kWh Essentials: Kilowatt-hour; the unit on your power bill (1 kW used for 1 hour).

L

Least-squares regression Essentials: Method that fits a line minimising the squared distance between data points and the line.
Level premium Insurance: Insurance premium fixed at the same dollar amount for the life of the policy.
Linear regression Essentials: Statistical method fitting a straight-line relationship between two variables.
Living allowance (child support) Tax: NZ$21,000 deducted in the IRD child support formula to cover basic costs of the paying parent.
Loan term Mortgage Finance: Number of years the loan must be repaid over (commonly 25-30 for NZ home loans).
Logistic regression Essentials: Statistical method fitting an S-curve to data with a yes/no outcome.
Logit Essentials: Natural log of the odds; the linear part inside a logistic regression.
Loss-of-rent cover Insurance: Insurance that pays the weekly rent if a rental property becomes uninhabitable after a claim.
Low-equity premium Mortgage: Extra rate on home loans with LVR above 80%; compensates the bank for higher risk.
LTV (customer) Finance: Customer lifetime value; total profit a business expects from a customer over their relationship.
Lump sum (mortgage) Mortgage: One-off extra payment toward principal that reduces total interest and shortens the loan.
Lump-sum tax Tax: One-off PAYE on a bonus, redundancy, or back-pay, calculated as if added to ordinary income.
Luteal phase Essentials: Second half of the menstrual cycle, after ovulation.
LVR Mortgage: Loan-to-Value Ratio; loan as a percentage of property value. RBNZ caps it at 80% for owner-occupiers.

M

M tax code Tax: Standard PAYE tax code for a single main job.
Marginal rate Tax: Tax rate applied to your next dollar of income; the rate on the top slice of your earnings.
Max heart rate Essentials: Highest beats-per-minute reachable in all-out exercise; estimated as 208 − 0.7 × age (Tanaka).
ME tax code Tax: PAYE code for low-income earners eligible for the Independent Earner Tax Credit.
Mean Essentials: Arithmetic average of a set of values.
Member tax credit Tax: Old name for the KiwiSaver Government Contribution; from 1 July 2025 it pays 25c per $1 of member contribution, up to $260.72/yr (max at $1,042.86 contributed).
Methamphetamine cover Insurance: NZ landlord add-on insurance for professional decontamination after meth contamination.
Mid-market rate Finance: True interbank exchange rate between two currencies, before any provider spread.
Mifflin-St Jeor equation Essentials: Standard modern formula for estimating BMR from weight, height, age, and sex.
Mixed-use asset Tax: Asset (bach, boat) used part for income and part privately; special GST and tax rules apply.
Monthly benefit Insurance: Fixed amount paid each month while an income-protection claim is active.

N

NCEA Essentials: National Certificate of Educational Achievement; NZ's main secondary school qualification system.
Negative binomial distribution Essentials: Probability of needing x trials to reach r successes.
Negatively geared Mortgage: Property where rental income falls short of all expenses, including mortgage interest.
Net (pay) Tax: After-tax pay; what actually lands in the bank account.
Net margin Finance: Net profit as a percentage of revenue.
Net present value (NPV) Finance: Sum of discounted future cash flows minus the upfront investment; positive NPV adds value.
Net profit Finance: Revenue after every cost: COGS, opex, depreciation, interest, tax.
Net worth Finance: Total assets minus total liabilities.
Net yield (rental) Mortgage: Rent received minus running costs, divided by property purchase price.
New build property Tax Mortgage: Residential property newly constructed; gets longer interest deductibility and shorter bright-line.
Nominal rate Finance: Stated interest rate before adjusting for inflation or compounding frequency.
NRWT Tax: Non-Resident Withholding Tax; tax taken from NZ-source income paid to overseas recipients.
Null hypothesis Essentials: Default assumption in a stat test that there is no effect or difference.
NZ Super Tax: Government pension paid to NZ residents from age 65 who meet residency rules.

O

Occupation class Insurance: Insurer's risk grade for a job, used to price income-protection and TPD cover.
OCR Mortgage: Official Cash Rate; the Reserve Bank's main interest-rate lever for the NZ economy.
Offset account Mortgage: Savings linked to a home loan; the balance reduces the interest charged without paying it down.
Operating expenses (opex) Finance: Day-to-day running costs of a business; salaries, rent, marketing, utilities.
Operating margin Finance: EBIT as a percentage of revenue; profitability from core operations.
Opportunity cost Insurance Finance: Value of the next-best use of money or time you give up by choosing one option over another.
Ordinary weekly pay Tax: Regular weekly pay excluding one-offs; one of two figures that set holiday pay.
Overtime Tax: Hours worked beyond contracted hours, often paid at 1.5× or 2× the ordinary rate.
Ovulation Essentials: Release of an egg from the ovary, typically 14 days before the next period starts.

P

p-value Essentials: Probability of seeing data as extreme as what was observed if the null hypothesis is true.
P&I Mortgage: Principal and Interest; the standard loan structure where each payment chips away at both.
Pace per km Essentials: Running speed expressed as minutes and seconds to cover one kilometre.
Payback period Finance: Time for an investment to recover its initial cost from its cash flows.
PAYE Tax: Pay As You Earn; income tax taken out of each paycheque by the employer.
PAYG holiday pay Tax: Holiday pay paid out as 8% of gross earnings each pay run, instead of accruing leave.
PIE rate Tax: Tax rate (10.5%, 17.5%, 28%) on income from a Portfolio Investment Entity like a KiwiSaver fund.
PIR Tax: Prescribed Investor Rate; the PIE rate the investor selects based on their income.
Poisson distribution Essentials: Probability of a given number of events in a fixed window when events are rare and independent.
Premium (insurance) Insurance: Regular payment (monthly or annual) made to keep an insurance policy in force.
Present value (PV) Finance: Today's value of a future cash flow, discounted back at a chosen rate.
Prime factorisation Essentials: Breaking a number into the product of its smallest prime factors.
Principal Mortgage Finance: Original amount borrowed on a loan, or the starting capital in an investment.
Provisional tax Tax: Tax paid in instalments through the year by self-employed and company taxpayers.
Public holiday Tax: Statutory day off (ANZAC, Christmas, etc.); workers get time-and-a-half plus a day in lieu.

R

R-squared Essentials: Percentage of variation in the data that the fitted model accounts for.
RBNZ Mortgage: Reserve Bank of New Zealand; sets the OCR, regulates banks, enforces LVR and DTI caps.
Real interest rate Finance: Nominal rate minus inflation; the actual purchasing-power return on savings.
Real value Finance: Dollar amount adjusted for inflation; what the money can actually buy.
Receiving parent (child support) Tax: Parent the child mainly lives with; the parent who receives the child support payment.
Redraw Finance: Loan feature that lets you pull back any extra payments you have made above the required minimum.
Redundancy entitlement Tax: Lump sum paid to an employee whose role ends due to restructure or business closure.
Refinance Mortgage: Switching a mortgage to a new bank or new product; may incur break and switching fees.
REINZ HPI Mortgage: Real Estate Institute of NZ House Price Index; the standard regional house-price benchmark.
Repayment frequency Mortgage Finance: How often loan payments fall due: weekly (52), fortnightly (26), or monthly (12).
Replacement cost Insurance: What it would cost today to replace items at brand-new prices, not their depreciated value.
Replacement cover Insurance: Insurance that pays to replace items new-for-old rather than at second-hand value.
Residual income tax (RIT) Tax: Final tax owed for the year after credits; sets next year's provisional-tax base.
Reverse charge (GST) Tax: Switch that puts the GST liability on the recipient rather than the supplier; common on imports.
Reverse mortgage Mortgage: Loan for retirees secured against home equity; interest compounds, repaid when the home is sold.
Risk-free rate Finance: Return on a zero-risk asset (typically NZ Government bonds); the base for CAPM.
ROI Finance: Return on Investment; profit divided by initial cost, often expressed annualised.
RUC Essentials: Road User Charges; distance-based road charge for diesel and electric vehicles in NZ.
RWT Tax Finance: Resident Withholding Tax; tax taken at source from NZ-resident interest and dividends.

S

S tax code Tax: Secondary income tax code; flat 17.5% if total earnings stay in the second-bracket band.
Salary sacrifice Tax: Trading a slice of pay for an employer-paid benefit (extra KiwiSaver, vehicle, etc.).
Savings suspension Tax: KiwiSaver pause of up to one year; member and employer contributions both stop during it.
Schedular payments Tax: Contractor or service-provider payments where withholding tax is taken at the IR330C rate.
Scientific notation Essentials: Number written as a × 10^b (e.g. 3.2 × 10⁵).
Secondary income Tax: Income from a second job; taxed at a flat secondary tax code (S, SH, ST, SA).
Serum creatinine Essentials: Kidney waste product measured in blood, used to estimate kidney function (eGFR).
SH tax code Tax: Secondary tax code at 30% for people whose combined income lands in the fourth bracket.
Sigmoid function Essentials: S-shaped curve that squashes any input to a value between 0 and 1.
Significance level (alpha) Essentials: Pre-set p-value threshold (commonly 0.05) below which a result is called statistically significant.
Simple interest Finance: Interest paid only on the original principal, never on accrued interest.
Sine Essentials: Trig ratio of opposite over hypotenuse in a right-angled triangle.
SL (student loan code) Tax: Suffix added to a tax code (M SL, S SL) when the worker is repaying a NZ student loan.
Slope Essentials: Rise over run; the m in y = mx + b.
Slope-intercept form Essentials: Linear equation written as y = mx + b.
Sole trader Tax: Self-employed person trading in their own name, not through a company or partnership.
Spot rate Finance: Current market exchange rate for an immediate currency conversion.
Spread (FX) Finance: Markup a provider takes between buy and sell prices on a currency conversion.
ST tax code Tax: Secondary tax code at 33% for people whose combined income lands in the fifth bracket.
Standard deviation Essentials: Measure of how spread out a dataset is from its mean.
Stepped premium Insurance: Insurance premium that rises each year as the insured ages, often steeply after 50.
Stepped tax brackets Tax: Progressive system where each income band is taxed at a higher rate than the band below.
Stress test (mortgage) Mortgage: Bank check of repayment ability at a higher rate than the one offered, often 1.5-3% above.
Student loan Tax: Government loan from StudyLink for tertiary study; repaid at 12% of income above the threshold.
Sum insured Insurance: Maximum dollar amount the insurer will pay out on a claim.

T

t-test Essentials: Statistical test comparing the means of two groups.
Take-home pay Tax: Net pay after PAYE, ACC, KiwiSaver, and student loan deductions.
Tanaka equation Essentials: Modern formula for max heart rate: 208 − 0.7 × age.
Tax code Tax: Two-or-three-letter PAYE code (M, ME, S, SH, ST, etc.) that sets the tax taken each pay.
Taxable income Tax: Gross income minus allowable deductions; the figure tax is calculated on.
TDEE Essentials: Total Daily Energy Expenditure; calories burned in a typical day, factoring in activity.
Tempo zone Essentials: Heart-rate zone 3 (70-80% of max), used for sustained hard efforts.
Term deposit Finance: Fixed-rate savings locked away for a set period (30 days to 5 years) in exchange for a higher rate.
Threshold zone Essentials: Heart-rate zone 4 (80-90% of max), near lactate threshold.
Time-and-a-half Tax: Pay at 150% of the ordinary rate; the standard public-holiday rate in NZ.
Top-up loan Mortgage: Additional borrowing against home equity, usually for renovations or another deposit.
Total remuneration Tax: Total package value: salary plus KiwiSaver, bonuses, and other employer-funded benefits.
TPD Insurance: Total and Permanent Disability cover; lump sum paid if the insured can never work again.
Trauma cover Insurance: Lump-sum insurance paid on diagnosis of a serious condition like cancer or heart attack.
Trigonometry Essentials: Branch of maths dealing with the angles and sides of triangles.
Two-tailed test Essentials: Hypothesis test that checks for a difference in either direction.

U

Underwriting Insurance: Insurer's process of assessing health, history, and risk before issuing or pricing cover.
Unit elastic Finance: Elasticity equal to 1; a 1% price change drives an exactly 1% quantity change.

V

Variance Essentials: How spread a dataset is around its mean; the square of the standard deviation.
VO2 max Essentials: Maximum oxygen the body can use during all-out exercise; the headline aerobic-fitness number.

W

WACC Finance: Weighted Average Cost of Capital; blended cost of a business's debt and equity funding.
Waiting period Insurance: Number of weeks an income-protection or mortgage-protection claimant waits before payments start.
Whole-of-life cover Insurance: Life insurance with no expiry; pays out whenever the insured dies, not just within a term.
Withholding (tax) Tax: Tax taken at source by the payer (employer, bank) before money reaches the recipient.
Working for Families Tax: Government package of weekly tax credits (FTC, IWTC, MFTC, BSTC) for working families.
WT Tax: Withholding tax on contractor schedular payments; rate set on the IR330C form.

Y

Yield to maturity (YTM) Finance: Annualised return on a bond if held to maturity; combines coupon income and capital movement.
YTD Tax: Year-to-date; cumulative figures from start of NZ tax year (1 April) to today.