Death and taxes may be a certainty but the Government is looking to ensure they do not happen at the same time.

It is about to iron out a business partnership tax anomaly that left some grieving widows and widowers wrestling with the IRD when their spouse died.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne yesterday announced the tidy-up of tax legislation introduced last year that allowed business partnerships to defer tax payments after the death of one of the partners to allow the business to continue.

Under the current law, the death of a spouse automatically dissolves the partnership, leaving the possibility of the surviving partner dealing with a tax bill on their shares.

"Furthermore, the surviving spouse must then also track his or her share of the partnership's assets separately from the inherited partnership assets, which can result in significant compliance costs," Dunne said.

"The death of a spouse is upsetting enough without the surviving spouse also having to worry at the time about the tax consequences of the death."

KPMG tax partner John Cantin said the proposed changes would likely have a wide-ranging impact with large numbers of farms operated by husband and wife partnerships, as well as many other busines-ses.

Cantin described the proposed changes as a "technical" amendment to align the law with its original intention.

The number of spousal partnerships is unknown.

The IRD said it did not collect data on husband and wife partnerships.