BUDGET deficits predicted in the Strategic Plan have provoked the concern of Chamber of Commerce president Kevin Keen.

The financial statement in the plan, formally lodged last week, says that the States will be in the red to the tune of £29m in 2010, and £33m in 2011.

Although the forecasts are five and six years off, Mr Keen says that it is a matter of concern that even with sales tax and the ’20 means 20′ package to cut income tax exemptions, the published plan still shows a deficit.

He said: ‘It looks to me to be an ongoing structural deficit.

‘In the revised strategic plan I would be looking for something to say how they are going to pay for it.’ If the figures are unrepresentative of how the States finances will look in 2010 or 2011, Mr Keen wants to know why they were included in the document.

Tax measures His understanding, he said, was that the tax measures which were proposed by the former Finance and Economics Committee would have covered the loss of States revenue from changes to company tax.

He said that both revenue and spending were easy to predict, and he wanted an explanation for the deficit prediction.