Messing with taxes carries risk

And yet we have any number of their colleagues slapping in amendments to next week’s Budget debate seeking to do just that. Budget amendments have saved islanders from States’ excesses in the past, though the prospect of ‘back of fag packet’ calculations, seeking to tear up carefully prepared financial projections, is often an uncomfortable one.

It’s highly unlikely any of the more significant tax moves will succeed, while it is highly likely that at least one deputy will warn not to meddle with income tax in this manner.

That’s an argument that one can have sympathy with, however the argument about the 20% rate and the tax cap being sacrosanct garners less sympathy. It’s hard to believe that a penny on income tax would prove a significant disincentive for islanders, or would discourage people to want to work here.

The tax cap is what it is and does a job. Of course it can be tweaked to suit, after all, we take pride that people choose the Guernsey way of life, rather than seek to save a couple of hundred pounds in tax, compared to Jersey, when they come here. But not on the hoof.

And a debate which contributes to the crusade to ‘tax the rich’ would be misguided. Globally and locally, high earners do the heavy lifting on personal taxation, while the average islander just about covers the cost of schooling their children.

A new global tax evasion report from an EU construct, seized upon by predictable candidates, full of cheap assessments and conclusions that ‘the rich’ are all about avoiding tax, needs proper challenge from places like Guernsey.

Just contributing to that myopic debate on a local level, rather than challenging the thinking, won’t serve the island well on many levels.