Digital tax changes need to succeed

The incident brought to a head years of problems for the Revenue Service, and particularly the Income Tax office.

The department has long been swamped by the demands on its team in assessing annual tax returns and although a slow and steady move over the years to digitalisation has made a marked difference for simple cases, it has never appeared to make a significant dent in ongoing backlogs.

Moves to close the office for appointments at certain times of the week, and limiting telephone inquiries, have also never looked as though they made a difference. And all the while communication with the office is often downright confusing.

People often hesitate to accept the good news that they might be due a tax refund because they are not sure if ‘transactions paid not yet brought into charge’ on their assessment statements actually leaves them with a credit or a debit.

So fairly reassuring to learn that more than 1,600 people have used the new online portal, launched last month at the height of ‘Stairs-gate’, to file their income tax return. And even better, that of those who wanted to tell the service about their experience, seven in 10 found it good to use.

The Revenue Service says it is looking for more ways to improve, ‘welcoming all feedback’, taking on ‘some suggested enhancements’ and launching a customer forum, in whatever form that might take.

Our story today offers some immediate feedback, not all of it great for the Revenue Service to hear, and its take on some of the criticism – the loss of pre-populated sections of the tax form described as ‘a good opportunity for customers to check their details are up-to-date’ could be one interpretation – might raise an eyebrow.

But these digital projects need to succeed across the States of Guernsey to allow for real cost-savings, genuine transformation and better services for islanders.