‘Who in Guernsey gains from being zero-GST?’ - Prow
Guernsey’s lack of willingness to address a public funding deficit is benefitting no-one, a senior committee president has warned.
Rob Prow said he had consistently warned about the need to fund public services properly. He was in the minority backing a goods and services tax at the beginning of the year, when the proposal was thrown out by the States.
He said that while he understood opposition to the introduction of a GST in the island, the financial reality made little sense.
‘On the consumption tax debate I’d ask the question, “who benefits from a zero consumption tax”? I don’t think it’s the general public.
Listen to the full interview with Home Affairs president Rob Prow on our latest Kiosk Politics podcast
‘We’re told, and it came up in a debate, that building materials here are perhaps double what they would be in the equivalent in the Hampshire store or whatever. So I would ask the question – where does that difference go?
‘Because Jersey and Isle of Man both have consumption taxes and both have the same transport and logistical costs.
‘So who in Guernsey gains from being zero GST or zero VAT? I don’t think it’s the general public. But somebody must.
‘Somebody somewhere must be taking that cut. But it isn’t you and I.’
Deputy Prow said that if he stood for election again next year, he would not be running on a GST ticket, but would argue strongly for an agreed fiscal policy to fund public services – ‘and we need one that we can get through the assembly’.
He said the three stabs at the variously-titled GST debates in the States over this political term were ‘pretty appalling’.
‘The question of a consumption tax was made out to be the work of the devil himself, but just about every country in the world, including our competitors, has a consumption tax,’ he said.
Jersey takes about £120m. a year in GST and Deputy Prow said that the Isle of Man’s VAT receipts were significantly higher.
‘I think the rhetoric we’ve heard has influenced the argument perhaps beyond repair.
‘No tax is popular, but we can’t do the things we want to do without funding, and we need to get on with things.’
