Thousands of tax reminders sent out as deadline looms

Islanders have until the end of February to submit their documents.

Sending out reminder letters has made the process of collecting income tax considerably easier this year, according to the Revenue Service.

The service reintroduced the issuing of reminders after listening to customer feedback and this has led to a ‘much smoother’ process, according to a spokesman.

It follows problems last year after late fines rather than reminders were sent out, resulting in queues of annoyed people at the tax office.

In all, 12,000 reminders have been sent this year. According to the latest figures, 19,000 personal tax returns have been received, of which 13,000 were completed online.

For those who have yet to submit their returns, the deadline is looming. Forms must be received, physically or online, by 28 February for the tax year of 2020 in order to avoid a late filing penalty. Information is available on www.gov.gg/revenueservice on how to file a return online.

Once islanders have gone through the process of providing their tax details, the service will then set about processing them. However, this part of the process has been beset with difficulties for several years, with a persistent backlog causing delays and additional costs.

The service is currently understaffed and looking to recruit people to fill 10 posts. Earlier this month it was announced that just under £200,000 had been paid out in 2021 by way of compensation to those who had waited more than a year to receive rebates. This sum was considerably higher than the equivalent figure from the previous year, in part because some progress has been made in clearing the backlog.

A similar figure is expected to be paid out this year as that work continues.

Former staff have been invited back to try to help clear the backlog and accountants have also been approached. At the beginning of 2022, one in three 2019 returns had yet to be assessed and one in 14 returns from 2018 were also still outstanding.

A new online form was launched in May of last year, which was claimed at the time to be ‘much, much quicker, much easier, and much more user-friendly’. However, it has not worked as expected and all returns have had to be assessed manually.