The deadline for 2024 tax returns to be submitted has been pushed back amid wider problems with Guernsey’s Revenue Service.
Deputy Gavin St Pier, the Vice-President of Policy and Resources, gave an emergency briefing in the States this morning.
He announced the deadline for 2024 returns has been extended, during a scathing speech covering States IT systems and the MyGov platform.
The seasoned Deputy claimed “it gets worse” when it comes to things happening behind the scenes at the Revenue Service, and he pointed fingers at the previous States, suggesting this was an “inherited problem”.
Focusing on income tax, he said the number of repayments issued to islanders has increased, growing from 1,000, to well over 3,000, since September.
However there are still thousands of people left waiting on repayments from previous years.
“Clearing this backlog remains their top priority,” Deputy St Pier told his colleagues.
“However, while processing repayments has been the highest priority, this has slowed the issue with new assessments.”
With many members of the public voicing their concerns online, and directly to Express, the VP of P&R referenced connection issues as the reason for extending the deadline, “as a result of intermittent issues with public online access to the revenue service system”.
He’s confirmed that the decision has recently been made to extend the deadline by two months, pushing it back to next year.
“Over recent weeks, the Director of Revenue Service has taken the decision to extend the deadline 2024 tax submissions to the 31st of January,” he said before laying the blame at the door of management, and not the staff dealing with members of the public.
“The problems are not with the front line teams, but with the way major change has been managed and overseen,” he said.
“Ineffective governance and unclear accountability seems to allow projects to continue without clear evidence of progress.”
More to follow…