GST could go above 3%, warns Chief Minister

[moot]

GST is causing my business to fail because of the knock on effects of my suppliers
having delayed goods delivery, because customs now have to check everything causing backlogs
one of my major suppliers has just stopped without even informing us! bringing goods in now, because of all the hassel involved and extra paperwork
leaving us and my customers up in the air, so any work I do for the states of Jersey Iv'e had to double the cost to pay for the extra aggro they are causing my firm to trade,
"GET RID OF THE STUPID TAX" I Say

Flintstone, you need to pull all the stops out. Email Terry Le Sueur direct and copy all States members and Customs chiefs in
Don't hold back and give them hell ! Just stay polite. It's amazing what you can do with the right words
Knock them off their comfortable chairs

Good luck !

[Fritz]

I,m still waiting to hear how many staff cuts have been made at Cyril Le Marquand House since the introduction of ,"ITIS".

Employers are being used as tax collectors, and are paying more to private accountancy firms to process all the information.

How many jobs have been cut at the Tax Office as a result? Surely there must be some.

[futuatcher]

Staying at 3% was never going to be permanent, I'm supposing. It was just a little squeeze to get some juice out, but when our pips going to squeak? 5%, 10%, 15%? I reckon 8% by 2012...

[stoofa]

I,m still waiting to hear how many staff cuts have been made at Cyril Le Marquand House since the introduction of ,"ITIS".

How many jobs have been cut at the Tax Office as a result? Surely there must be some.

I doubt it removed any of the workload given its not a true PAYE system - they still have to do all the work they did before ITIS came in - processing the returns etc

The aim of the system was to improve cashflow and catch seasonal workers who didnt bother filing returns and were disproportionately expensive to chase down afterwards, and to remove the problem of people facing large arrears because of the inability to pay a large bill come December, which obviously had a tendancy to impact the harder up - for this final aim alone i think it was worthwhile - I know a few people who had real problems with tax arrears under the old system.

Employers are being used as tax collectors, and are paying more to private accountancy firms to process all the information.

They had to do social security filings anyway. Its not particularly hard to build ITIS requirements in to the same process.

[Fritz]

Social Security returns are done quarterly. Tax returns are done monthly. No matter what way you look at it, it involves extra work for the employer.

Somewhere along the line Employers have taken on a workload that was formerly dealt with by someone in the tax dept. Who in the tax dept has been made redundant as a result of this work being,"Out-sourced"?

[stoofa]

Social Security returns are done quarterly. Tax returns are done monthly. No matter what way you look at it, it involves extra work for the employer.

There is an extra admin burden. I don't dispute that. The process isn't fundamentally different though, unlike GST, so it doesnt involve a radical overhaul of what you are currently doing. It would be nice if Social and Income Tax could pull the process parallel though.

Somewhere along the line Employers have taken on a workload that was formerly dealt with by someone in the tax dept. Who in the tax dept has been made redundant as a result of this work being,"Out-sourced"?

They haven't - this work didn't exist before.

Previously returns were filed annually, payment was generally made in one lump sum.

Everyone still files a return, which has to be reviewed in exactly the same way as before ITIS. Now they have to issue ITIS rate notices regularly too. Their work burden has increased as a result.

Only difference is that cash comes in via the employer monthly, rather than from the individual in one go. That monthly payment process is the additional work burden, on both sides.

[Fritz]

I would suggest that all employers, when returning monthly ITIS cheques, accompany them with a covering letter showing an, "Administration Costs", deduction.

I did this years ago when the tax dept ordered me to arrest one of my employees wages, (on a weekly basis). I charged 20% administration and they didn,t mind.

[cyrillem]

I spoke to Senator Walker at Imagine Jersey and he said that there would be a growing defecit which would need to be filled in the future. He also said a GST increase was the most plausible way of doing this. And he also appeared pleased that he would not have to be the individual to raise it from the current 3%