£1.6million has been spent in just a year and a half fine tuning plans to adopt GST+.
The cost has been calculated after Deputy Haley Camp put some formal questions to Policy and Resources about the officer and staff time dedicated to working out the details for the proposed changes to tax and social security systems and the introduction of a goods and services tax, since it was approved by the last States in November 2024.
She asked for “the total total cost incurred from November 2024 (the date of the extant resolution in respect of GST+) to date (end of May)”.
P&R came back with £1,604,318.
While P&R could not detail the staff costs, except for project work, it calculated the expenditure based on other factors including holding meetings and looking at alternatives to the previously agreed plans.
The four workstreams referenced includes the exploratory work that the current P&R commissioned to look at alternatives to the previously agreed plans.
Workstream 1 covers the extant resolutions while work stream 2 was covered by the Tax Review Sub-Committee set up by P&R to look at alternatives.
The bulk of the £1.6m was spent on progressing work stream 1, with the new system intended to be ready by 2028 if the current States back it.
The current P&R have published an alternative set of proposals however, notably dropping the proposed introduction rate of GST from 5% down to 3%.