Guernsey Encourages Online Filing

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

11 January 2012

Guernsey's Income Tax Department has announced measures aimed at improving uptake of its online filing facility. Since its introduction in 2008, the initiative has seen just 5% of tax returns filed electronically.

Rob Gray, the Director of Income Tax, said: “Up to now, there have been relatively few benefits for taxpayers who file their tax returns on-line. When the system was first introduced, in 2008, the principal benefit was the speed with which the tax return reached the Income Tax Office. More recently, we introduced a 'pre-filling' facility so that once an individual’s return had been filed online, subsequent returns automatically had some text entered which avoids part of the chore of completing a paper tax return. We recognised, however, that if we wanted to make on-line filing the norm, rather than the exception, in the future, we had to make the benefits for taxpayers filing electronically much more significant than they are currently.”

To improve the service on offer, the Income Tax Department from January 13, 2012, is to introduce two major enhancements:

• The introduction of an automatic assessing facility for individuals; and,
• Entry into a free prize draw, with three prizes ranging between GBP2,500 and GBP1,000, for individuals who file their returns using the online system to encourage use.

The Income Tax Office further said it is investigating other uses of the electronic system for tax administration, and is to make refinements to improve its usability in the coming years.

From 2013, companies will be required to file their returns electronically in place of sending paper returns and copies of their accounts to the Income Tax Office.

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