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Jersey's Government is hoping to raise around £40million over the next four years by launching a major crackdown on islanders not paying enough tax.
The figures are contained in a document published later as an addition to the recently launched Government Plan covering 2020 to 2023.
In the coming weeks, Express will be sifting to through the detail of that plan to discover exactly what Jersey's government has in mind...
As well as the main public document, officials also released a more detailed breakdown of expenditure plans.
Under a proposal entitled 'Spend to Raise,' in the section on 'Modernising Government', Revenue Jersey (formerly the Taxes Office) sets out plans to spend £1,562,000 a year for each of the four years from 2020 through to 2023, to cut down on the number of islanders not following the tax rules.
In total over the four years, it's claimed the crackdown will generate an extra £40million.
Pictured: the document says that without the extra investment, the number of islanders paying the right amount of tax, "...will continue to deteriorate."
It'll mean an extra 21 full-time staff in Revenue Jersey, "...which will drive improved compliance in the tax system and deliver additional revenues. Without such investment, it is likely that tax compliance in Jersey will continue to deteriorate."
The detailed figures estimate that the island's current tax gap (between the amount of tax received, and the amount which should have been paid) could be improved by as much as £5million next year, increasing to £13million by 2023.
It's planned some of that money will be used to fund other projects proposed by Revenue Jersey, including spending £7.5m over the period of the new plan to build its team, and maintain the face-to-face Helpdesk:
"Considerable further work is needed to keep building Revenue Jersey (including, for example, the future integration of some customs and excise work/teams into the new organisation) and developing the new Revenue Management System (RMS) to enable it to be developed in response to future policy changes. For example, we will need to undertake work to make the system ready to implement the recommendations of the Personal Tax Review and to develop the more-sophisticated risking system which will in the longer run drive our efforts to detect error, evasion and fraud in the tax system."
Pictured: One of the planned changes to the tax system is to give wives their own tax status.
More detail is provided on how Revenue Jersey plans to crack down on those not paying all the tax they should do. As part of that, they will be focussing on 'high-risk' taxpayers who are getting their taxes wrong "either mistakenly or deliberately", chasing outstanding debts, making sure employers use the ITIS system correctly, staff training and changes to tax policy - which could see GST extended.
The document says the money will support, "...reviews to broaden the scope of Existing Schemes of Taxation without increasing tax rates: for example, activities similar to the current review of the scopefor levying GST on “digital imports” (Sky TV, Netflix etc); and the removal of the GST de minimis level."
Last month it emerged that tardy tax filers could raise around £1.3million in fines, as those responsible for the 5,400 returns which missed the deadline at the end of May faced penalties of up to £250 each.
It was a slight reduction on last year which saw more than 6,000 late filers raising a total of £1.5million in fines for the Taxes Office.
Comptroller of Taxes Richard Summersgill said that while many customers left their tax returns to the last minute this year, he expects to see islanders’ behaviour change when online filing is introduced in spring 2020.
Pictured: Comptroller of taxes, Richard Summersgill
This is part of an overhaul of the tax system bringing the current legislation up to date by introducing online filing as well as removing “archaic” requirements for wives to seek their husband’s permission to discuss their own tax affairs.
Mr Summersgill explained the plans to extend the deadline for those filing online with the new system in the next tax year. He said: “From next year, many customers who choose to file online will have until 31 July to make their online return and will get their tax assessment almost instantly, which will give an incentive for customers to file before the deadline. The online process will also make submitting the tax return much easier for the majority of taxpayers.”
As tax officers are in the midst of transferring customer data held on paper files into the new online system in preparation for this move, some taxpayers will have to wait longer than usual for their tax assessments this year.
Of this, the Comptroller said: “We apologise for the delays that moving to the new system will cause – this work is essential to make online filing possible by spring 2020.”
The proposed Government Plan will be debated by the Island's politicians in November.
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