Three new Government roles to deal with extra GST work

Thursday 29 April 2021

Three extra civil service roles are being created to deal with the extra work created by dropping the GST de minimus limit from £240 to £135 in October.

The Government will now recruit to fill two permanent positions and one fixed-term-contract role in the Customer and Local Services team.

This will cost a one-off £7,100 this year and a further £85,100 a year on an ongoing basis. The £92,200 total is being transferred from the budget of Justice and Home Affairs, as the money was originally allocated to the department in the 2020-2023 Government Plan because the work was done by Customs officers.

Treasury Minister Susie Pinel recently made a ministerial decision approving the transfer. The report accompanying this says: “£200,000 per annum was allocated to JHA in the Government Plan 2020-2023 to provide extra resources to administer the reduction of the GST de minimis waiver, originally due to be introduced in July 2020 but now implemented from 1 October 2020. 

Pictured: The 'de minimis' level was reduced from £240 to £135 in October.

“JHA and CLS have agreed that part of the funding is to be transferred to CLS to enable the recruitment of two permanent and one fixed term contract Customer Service Advisors as much of the additional work arising out of the reduction of the de minimis waiver will be managing customer interaction and enquiries. 

“Customs and Immigration staff who were previously based at CLS are being returned to their substantive roles within JHA.”

It adds: “This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States in the Government Plan for 2021-24 and the recurring transfer of £85,100 will be reflected in the next Government Plan 2022-2025.”

The drop in the threshold above which GST must be paid was delayed by a number of months because of the pandemic. 

Soon after the £105 decrease, many online shoppers complained that separate items each costing less that £135 - sometimes bought days apart from each other - were being added together by Customs and attracting a GST charge.

However, the Government has been clear in its intention to drop the minimum threshold even further, possibly to zero, to seek parity between online and local retailers. Its aim is to encourage online marketplaces, such as Amazon, to charge GST at the point of sale rather than collect it from customers once the items arrive in Jersey. 

According to the last published Government accounts, GST brought in £90m in 2019.