Treasury Minister responds to tax uproar

Tuesday 28 January 2020

The Treasury Minister has urged more islanders to use the online tax filing system, as she responded to widespread criticism over the running of Jersey's taxes office in recent weeks.

The comments from Deputy Susie Pinel follow two apologies from Comptroller of Revenue Richard Summersgill, who was forced to speak out over the delays, and then again when dozens of local children were sent tax forms by mistake.

Then last week, married women took to social media to express their frustrations at being 'locked out' of using online tax filing - a system launched with the aim of making paying tax easier and more efficient for all islanders.

Pictured: Tax Comptroller Richard Summersgill has previously apologised for operational problems at Revenue Jersey.

Under current laws, married women are not allowed to file tax returns - only their husbands, the 'principal taxpayers', are able to do so.

While many married women admit overcoming this by filling out the form and then passing it to their husband – the ‘principal taxpayer’ under law – to sign, the new online filing system didn't have any anti-discrimination provision built in, preventing them from being able to deal with the couple’s taxes in any way at all.

In a statement released yesterday afternoon, the Treasury Minister did not accept criticism of the system, noting that it "operates under exactly the same outdated tax legislation as the paper tax form".

However, she said it would be possible to make changes to both systems by 2021 if States Members vote in favour of her plans to scrap the "archaic" legislation forming part of wider proposals to reform the island's tax system next month.

Pictured: Online tax filing was launched last week, but the system cannot be used by married women.

The Minister went on to state that she accepted recent criticism of "some aspects of the taxes operation", stating: "Islanders deserve a high quality and timely service, and once again I would like to share the Comptroller of Revenue’s regret at the delay and the concern that it causes to Islanders whose returns have not yet been assessed.

“To recap, tax officers have had an enormous amount of additional work to do in 2019 to move from the 35-year-old ITAX system and to input information manually from thousands of paper files into our new Revenue Management System. In order to iron out some glitches, the new system went live a few months later than planned, but still within budget. The impact of this delay, and of staff shortages, is that the assessment of 2018 tax returns is still not complete."

Deputy Pinel added that she has been receiving "regular updates" on the situation and what is being done to "clear the backlog", and expressed her gratitude to tax officers for their efforts.

In her concluding remarks, she urged more islanders to use the new online filing system: “It is the new system that has enabled the Government to offer online filing for personal taxes and more than 600 people have already filed online so far.

"I urge all taxpayers who can use this new facility to do so."