After one amendment failed when it targeted just GST, the one laid by Haley Camp wanted the proposals on GST scrapped, along with reforms to income tax and social security, but for those on motor tax to go ahead. The amendment, seconded by Garry Collins, also included proposals calling for both a corporate levy and a visitor levy to be drawn up.
It broadly left things as they were in the Policy & Resources report, she said.
‘Where it differs in the main, is on one point – whether we should now introduce a goods and services tax, together with all of the implementation complexities, administration, compliance obligations, and inflationary consequences that accompany it,’ she said.
P&R member Andy Niles acknowledged the amount of work that had gone into the amendment but he explained that the committee believed it would not have the impact that Deputy Camp had outlined.
For instance, he pointed out that bringing in a new corporate levy in place of the proposed international service entities charge would impact local businesses, whereas the ISE charge was aimed at companies whose clients were overwhelmingly outside the island. If a local company was impacted by a new tax it would probably pass on additional costs to the consumer.
His comment was later echoed by fellow P&R member Steve Falla, who said that the ISE part of the package would raise £11m. of brand new revenue, with no impact on local corporates. But under the amendment, local businesses would be affected and the amount raised would be some £4m. less.
Deputy Mark Helyar, who had seconded the attempt to sursis debate, said he rather liked the amendment since it did not say ‘no nay never, no more’ to GST, but it suggested doing everything else P&R suggested first, to see how that looked.
Neil Inder said in a message sent to Economic Development when he was president there was concern that the local finance industry was being seen as an easy target for new levies and taxes raised on a piecemeal basis.
That had been written three years ago by the-then chairwoman of the Guernsey Investment Fund Association, Haley Camp.
Economic Development president Sasha Kazantseva-Miller said that the figures quoted in the amendment were double counting levies that were already incorporated into the P&R package.
And the idea of a visitor levy had been raised before, but only if it was put towards the visitor economy, but Deputy Camp’s amendment did not suggest that.
Jayne Ozanne said she liked the amendment and disputed that it was looking to impose anything, but it was asking P&R to go away to draw up alternative proposals which could be discussed by the Assembly. One of the main advantages of the amendment was that it avoided additional inflationary costs that would be caused directly by a GST being introduced, said Rob Curgenven.
Paul Montague said it felt as if members were grasping for a life raft rather than making a hard decision that would be unpopular.
P&R president Lindsay de Sausmarez said the amendment would only make the over-reliance on income-based taxation worse because it did not include P&R’s proposed new social security allowance and those rates would continue to rise.
In summing up, Deputy Camp said that no matter what was said by those who backed GST, it would make things cost more.
The amendment was lost by 23 votes to 15.
How they voted
... on Deputy Haley Camp’s amendment to drop GST and bring in transport taxes, a visitor levy and a new tax on companies.
For (15): Deputies Blin, Camp, Collins, Curgenven, Gabriel, Gollop, Goy, Helyar, Kay-Mouat, Matthews, McKenna, Ozanne, Van Katwyk, Vermeulen, Williams.
Against (23): Deputies Burford, Bury, Cameron, de Sausmarez, Dorrity, Falla, Hansmann Rouxel, Humphreys, Inder, Kazantseva-Miller, Laine, Le Brun, Leadbeater, Malik, Montague, Niles, Oswald, Parkinson, Rochester, Rylatt, Sloan, St Pier, Strachan.
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