Inland Revenue has collected more than $207 million in repayments since July last year from student loan borrowers living overseas in the past 9 months.

This is a 43 percent increase on the same period from the previous year.

Currently, 71 percent of overseas student loan borrowers are in default - and together, they owe about $2.3 billion in loans, penalties and interest.

Deloitte tax partner Robyn Walker explains why the IRD is so invested in getting these repayments back.

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