Is income tax at 20% sacrosanct?
A PROPOSAL for a 5% GST brings red ribbons and hundreds on to the streets to protest. But a suggestion of adding 3% on to income tax can slip in through the back door with hardly a word said?
No wonder Policy & Resources members were a little confused, or ‘staggered and depressed’, as Deputy Dave Mahoney put it.
Were most people aware that 23% income tax could be hitting them in the pocket? Slipping such a fundamental move in, via amendment, had not given the public time to get their flags and banners ready, Deputy Mahoney said.
Anyway, Deputy Lyndon Trott’s proposal was ultimately dismissed by deputies, many of whom appeared to be appalled that such an idea could even be countenanced.
Many raised the spectre of being out of step with Jersey and the Isle of Man, which some think is fine to do on personal taxes, but not when taxing corporates, and vice versa.
We shall probably never know whether the public do accept a need for extra taxes, but would prefer an income tax hike – ironically, one of the earliest proposals put forward by P&R, and since consistently dismissed by the committee – rather than the dreaded GST, or if, indeed, 20% personal tax is sacrosanct.
Such a move does have some factors in its favour, and plenty against, but in any ‘normal’ times would be dismissed out of hand. Will it ever be raised again?