In February 1994, Christchurch businessman Dave Henderson walked into the Inland Revenue Department. He was not a happy man. His girlfriend had recently been there to collect a refund Dave’s company was owed. An IRD staff member made some suggestive comments to her. Dave told the IRD officer that if he ever talked to one of his employees like that again he would kick his “fat arse from one end of Cashel Street to the other”.
And so began a saga of Kafkaesque and yet comedic proportions.
But Dave refused to give in. He kept fighting
He also kept both his sense of humour and his records - of every surreal phone conversation; of every demand; of every piece of paper.
He kept fighting until his battle reached the very highest levels of Government.
And finally, four years after the comedy of errors began, Dave Henderson won.
Dave got his life and his business back together. And in a final ironic two-fingered salute, he bought the building which houses the South Island head office of the IRD.
And renamed it Henderson House.
We’re Here to Help is a Kafkaesque comedy based on the true story of one man’s David-and-Goliath battle with the biggest bureaucracy of all – the tax department. We're Here to Help is available on DVD New Zealand-wide from March 19, 2008. Distributed by Sony Pictures (NZ) Ltd.
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