The Revenue Service already has its hands quietly in our pockets
I MUST applaud the Guernsey Revenue Service for their outstanding working capital management from my recent experience. Masquerading as ‘IT issues’ and ‘staffing backlogs’ I see a textbook case of getting your debtors to pay early and defer your creditors out as long as you can. Last year I submitted a coding notice to take advantage of the mortgage interest relief while it still exists, but it took nearly a year to process so never managed to actually get the relief within the tax year, overpaying on my monthly income tax contributions for the full 12 months. Now due back a substantial amount, my wife and I, I was relieved when the online tax portal was finally brought online months overdue only to find my account became locked during the process of filling it out (my fault for following the instructions on the form notifying them of our marriage last year). Now three months later, several calls and messages later my tax return is still locked and I can’t progress my bid to recover my overpaid tax. And this isn’t even an isolated incident. In my professional life I have only recently received a cheque from the Revenue Service after 18 months of chasing a refund. In ordinary times I might shrug this off as one of those things but in a world where the MSCI world index of global equities has shot up near 40% year-on-year and inflationary warning signs are all around I can’t help feeling 1) short-changed here, 2) quite concerned about what my surplus funds have been up to during this time, and 3) curious as to how many other households and businesses are in a similar boat. Regardless of whether we are set for higher explicit tax rates or not, in real terms the Revenue Service already has its hands quietly in our pockets.
DAVID FINCH
Editor’s footnote: A spokesman for the Guernsey Revenue Service responds:
In general terms a coding notice is updated when a customer’s circumstances change, for example when they purchase a property or change jobs.
Unfortunately, this customer’s request for an updated coding notice was not dealt with in a timely manner. We are also investigating the delay in unlocking the account, for which we apologise. We are continually looking at ways to improve customer satisfaction and the ability for customers to self-serve is a priority. The ability to request or update a coding notice is available online, where revised notices are issued to both the customer and employer in a more automated way. If a customer is changing employer, they can advise us by visiting gov.gg/revenueservice/changeemployer. If a customer’s circumstances change, they can advise us through the MyGov site where they will need to register before visiting my.gov.gg/revenue, to change to their coding notice. If customers believe something has gone wrong, or are disappointed with the service they have received, they can go to gov.gg/ccc to provide feedback so we can use your experiences to continuously improve the services we deliver.