Spend less or tax more
Friday 16th January 2009, 3:00PM GMT.
A MONTH after taking office, ministers are being forced to decide between less spending or more taxes.
Early work on the Strategic Plan, which will set ministerial policies and objectives over the next three years, has identified millions of pounds’ worth of extra projects that ministers want funding for. But Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur (pictured) has said that no new spending will be sanctioned unless it is matched by a saving in the department or more income – and has hinted at possible redundancies.
That will not be welcome news to ministers, four of whom won office on the back of promises to fight for more funding for their departments.
Last month Health Minister Jim Perchard, Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand, Transport Minister Mike Jackson and Education Minister James Reed said that they wanted more money for projects including the New Directions health strategy, refurbishment at Overdale, the ageing population, the Prison, Probation, the Alcohol and Drugs Service, Fire Service equipment and school refurbishment.
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Hmmm, that’s a hard one.
Ministers to decide whether they should tighten their belts in the current tough economic climate or tax the man on the street yet more to pay for increases.
It’s a long shot, but my money’s on the vote for more tax!
Any predictions…. anyone ?
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Oh great!
Just how much more tax can they take off us.
Cancel the Waterfront and stop all the nice trips all over the world to attend meaningless conferences.
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we are born free , and taxed to death. taxation is fine, but i hate the squandering.
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This is a complete no brainer.
The Chief Minister is setting himself up for a fall and taxes will rise to cover the increased expenditure.
Why?
The States elected Terry le Sueur to be Chief Minister but those that voted for him are not pledged to support his policies in any way.
In fact several of his Ministers were elected to their offices on platforms that ran counter to his own pledges.
A Chief Minister does not control the Council of Ministers in the same way that a British Prime Minister controls his Cabinet through shared party loyalty, manifesto pledges and the power of appointment. And as the last Council of Ministers under Frank Walker demonstrated over and over again there is no such thing as collective responsibility or decision making in the CoM.
So I predict the Ministers will ask the States for the extra money, the House will give it to them and Senator Phillip Ozouf will have to find the cash in the usual place, the taxpayers’ pockets!
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“My Hero! Uncle Terrence will save Jersey which
“by the way” isnt in a recession.
What a start to the new year!
the same old last of the summer wine government!
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Hmmmm.. more taxes on the way then.. suprise suprise!!
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Well it wont affect the 11k’s so whats all the fuss about? As long as Tezzas’ replacement continues having private taxation agreements with these mega rich, the old boys pockets and bellies will be full! Aint life wonderful! Roll on the revolution!!
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People are losing jobs. The States can’t control expenses, so this is dire straights – as a result of mismanagement from the States!!!
When Ozouf goes back to the polls again, there will be a focus by many people to see him out, if he becomes an abject failure in the States as Treasurer.
It is bad enough that 20/20 is coming in, placing additional pressure on young families, and those with mortgages in a recessionary climate.
Now this!
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But there is no recession in Jersey……
and we tax payers are not prepared to pay more tax, cut the vast numbers of civil servants for a start.
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Is it April already!!!
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Anyone feel like life in Jersey is spiraling out of control? With the sheriff of Notingham at the helm we are sure to be taxed taxed taxed he will never realise that all the “middle earners” are just scrapping by, while all his well off 11K and UK Business Friends are sitting back reaping rewards of a tax free life at our expense!
If we all have to tighten our belts and avoid unnecessary exenditure so should the States – Recession is worldwide and last time I looked Jersey was still on planet earth!
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Always makes me chuckle when Jersey folk complain about being taxed. Anyone who has lived elsewhere will know that we have it very good in this Island. How about 4o% income tax, 15% VAT, and 5 grand a year in property tax.
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The decision that will be taken will be more taxes as everybody has already stated. What should be happening is a complete clampdown on stupid expenditure and proper cost saving measures implemented. I reckon most of us on this website could save £60million a year just by controlling spending properly and spending wisely!!!
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It is hard to live already, how much one can stand? We all (except millionaires) pay big tax bills already but only States’ people are benefiting & laughing. It makes me sick
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whatever
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It is unacceptable that the man on the street should pay yet more taxes. Instead, the 1(1)Ks should now be told that “20 means 20″ and its their round. As well as being fairer, this would also increase tax receipts for the States. These individuals would still be better off than if they resided “onshore”.
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pay out for the wollies staff then up the taxes, nice
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Additional taxes will greatly effect the people in Jersey who are now finding it difficult to pay their rents, mortgages, the ever increasing food bills that have already been taxed and cost of electricity and gas. Confidence in Jersey is at an all time low. It would be better to pause future projects and focus on using the money to help the people who may lose their jobs as the recession worsens. It simply would not be fair to tax people so that there is something to help them out with at the end of the day.
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Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur quoted in the JEP
“and has hinted at possible redundancies”
This is rich coming from the Chief Minister considering that his department has created 3 new director positions for 2009 which will cost the Tax Payer over £500,00 per annum.
Bill Ogley is paid to run the States but claims he needs this extra help, maybe a cut in his pay should be introduced and practice what you all preach.
If he brings the axe down will he be willing to provide cuts in his own department and just on the lowest level cival servants.
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Dompycat has it right, Tax in Jersey is so much lower than a lot of places, you should be thanking your lucky stars….. but no, you moan… not really surprising given the bean mentality!
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Why is there not more fuss being made over tax relief on mortgages being scrapped. Have I missed something.
20,000 people signed to say they didn’t want to pay 3% on their shopping, yet by scrapping tax relief on mortgages this will add £1000′s on their tax bill each year. I know my tax is going to increase by about £2000 each year. I’m struggling to pay my mortgage as it is.
I have a choice now of selling my house and paying then more in rent, or taking my kids out of private education in which case, this will cost the States more than the extra £2000 their taking from me each year, as they will have to pay for their education instead of me.
Why are we leetting this happen without a protest.
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Dompycat thats the uk. the uk cost of living is alot lower in regards to shopping and bills than it is here in Jersey. rents are also alot lower
You have a wide choice of places to make your decisions over there and a competitive market for food and fuel
In Jersey you dont, hence why a tax hike will cripple people.
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sarah spot on my friend in scotland has choice of 5 supermarkets 2 discount stores and a lovely market that sells just about anything from food,books,clothes etc with a population of about 30,000 and she thinks she is hard done by,as the nearest asda is 50 miles away.the food certainly is a lot cheaper in uk as they have choice which is denied to us
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Big Bean:
I have said the same thing about 20 means 20.
You are the first person i have seen bring up the issue with the mortage relief.
In the hustings i rasied the question of the time bomb called 20:20 and was met with blank faces from all candidates.
No one understands fully what 20 means 20 is really about.
Come May when everyone has completed their tax returns and get their new itis notice, then maybe people will understand.
“The taxpayer is supporting Finance in Jersey.”
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At the time of the elections, the JEP ran a questionaire. Every single candidate who answered bar one agreed that there should be tax relief on interest paid on mortgages. Yet, I have heard nothing further since.
And it’s all very well people critizing Jersey mentallity (comment 20) but this affects everyone who lives in the island, Jersey, English, Polish, Portuguese. And whilst I am glad that we don’t pay 40% tax and 15%VAT, (although I would argue that in some stores we are paying GST on top of VAT), I would dearly like to have a grocery bill that doesn’t cost £100 a week or live in a modest average family home that doesn’t cost well over half a million.
I recently visited the UK where I compared prices from property, petrol, clothes in the same high street stores that we have in Jersey, food and even going out for a meal and a pint. everything was cheaper by far in the UK (with VAT!).
I’ve always accepted the high cost of living in Jersey as tax has been relatively low and we have a reasonably good quality of life. Swings and roundabouts I called it, but soon, the average person will not be able to afford the basics let alone the luxuries, and that quality of life will cease to exist.
I work hard to provide for my family and have always contributed. If I want to have a moan, I think I have earned that right.
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Moan moan moan, whing whinge whinge. If you don’t like Jersey, leave! Join the real world and get some perspective. You’ll find it refreshing.
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Regarding Sarah’s comments concerning the cost of living in the UK, I was wondering if you have ever lived and worked in the UK? If you had you would know that to earn the best wages (ie comparable to Jersey) the only area you can work is London, a city widely regarded as being one of the most expensive in the world, even compared to Jersey. Gas and Elec bills are going through the roof in the UK to the extent that there is a large percentage of the population living in fuel poverty. Added to this the average council tax bill is £150 pcm plus increasing petrol taxes and car taxes. Not to forget the above inflation increases for rail travel resulting in a season ticket from Kent to London being in excess of £2500 per year. Saving a tenner on your shopping in the UK compared to Jersey does not make up for this.
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The States of Jersey are in posession of a huge Rainy Day Fund, well its certainly raining now. This is tax payers money so lets have some of it back.Perhaps the annual interest should be put back into the economy or a percentage of the capitol used to offset any tax increase until this economic downturn starts to recover.
Its tax payers past and present who in effect built up this fund so States members take heed and release some of this cash now,not to fund projects such as the Waterfront development but to assist the ordinary man and woman, the middle earners who cannot claim anything by way of Income Support and who is having a hard time struggloing to pay the rent, mortgage and childcare etc.
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time the 1(1)Ks started paying 20% then, isn’t it?
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Income Tax in Jersey for the lower paid is actually higher than what the working man pays in France or most of the rest of continental Europe (where normal rates are one month’s salary after allowances – about 8%). It is only the better paid or rich in Jersey who pay less tax than the rest of Europe, where rates are banded depending upon income, and capital taxes can be onerous.
The idea that the ordinary Jersey person pays low income tax is a fallacy spun by Le Sueuer, Ozouf and all the other GST supporters at the time they were pushing through this unfair (immoral) tax.
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Totally in agreement with #29 Bruces’ comment above re 1(1)Ks.
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If Dompeycat is so happy to be paying more tax, perhaps he (or she) could pay mine.
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No brainer……stop wasting public money!!! We all deserve to have some input into what our taxes are spent on…..a democratic vote on our options would be a good start rather than paying for “works of art” a la toad pillar and steam clocks….
How about a suitably sized underground train service instead of a bus service. This will reduce traffic etc and can be hidden to protect the environment, especially if they were electric trains. What do you all think?
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If we all loose our Jobs courtesy of the recession we will not be able to pay tax and the states will have to keep us, I wonder how long the rainy day fund will last if that happens !
A little forward planning I feel is needed here. however I can’t remember the last time the states actually thought through the consequences of their actions look at the start up of GST that was an administrative nightmare at the begining and still has many pitfalls
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Moi (33) I don’t feel tunnelling is the answer but I do agree something needs to be done about traffic, how about the states focusing on the existing town and making it a pedestrian area? I walk home every night and the fumes are getting far worse. Let’s think about the health of the population before the new finance and commercial district.
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I would like to see an article in the JEP that compares a single person, a single parent,married couple with two small children, and a couple with teenagers in different locations in the Uk and Jersey.
Typical Income, tax, social, food, rates, utility bills etc. There must be a point where living in Jersey loses its financial benefit. Agreed, it is a beautiful island etc and that we must way up the pros and cons.
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How about a congestion charge for traffic to enter st Helier, Higher for those with single occupants, a massive hike in parking fees, a swinging tax on private parking rented to outsiders,
No charge for people who live in town of course. That’s cos I do.
We could use the revenue to subsadise a decent bus service.
It would not bother the rich or high earners they would just pay it as they would not expirience traffic delays,and not have a parking problem.
The poor would benefit from possibly a free bus service that ran frequently from all places in the island and on time.
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agree with you pjg also a park and ride would help stop the congestion in town
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PJG – all of your excellent ideas have already been suggested, along with a few more such as duty related to engine size/CO2 output – and all have been rejected by our pioneering and courageous politicians. We don’t suffer from a lack of good ideas, we all suffer from lack of vision and lack of leadership.
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The States have been promising to tackle the traffic / public transport problem since about the early seventies.
In all that time very little has been achieved. Any effective policy would require upsetting someone so nothing is done.
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Just how are ordinary people supposed to pay more taxes? We’ve only just begun to feel the real implications of 20-means-20 and the finances of many people are in tatters as they were based on the pre-0.10 situation. For instance it’s not possible to start changing the way mortgages etc were set up a couple of years ago without enormous penalties.
What is needed is a good hard look at major States funded ititiatives and to decide whether these actually are essential in today’s financial climate and whether the money would be better spent elsewhere ie Health and Education?
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Smiler you’re right…
UK and Jersey life are incomparable unless you are willing to go into ridiculous detail.
I picked out some jobs advertised in Jersey that were comparable with UK positions. For £14k in the UK it was around £19k in Jersey. With taxes that’s just under £11.5k net in the UK and just under £17k in Jersey. So the £5,000 gap is already up to £5,500. Most UK jobs are in the city (or new business parks with poor, if any, public transport links). So many people in the UK cannot afford to live near their work. As an example my sister and her husband’s commuting and car parking bill is upwards of £100 a week (that probably more than makes up for the lower food bills).
Costs for leisure pursuits (or children’s clubs) are comparable between Jersey and the UK but the travel involved may well cost a lot more in the UK.
Factor in that the lower cost of living is only in SOME parts of the UK, not all as people seem to like to think.
Most comparisons between Jersey and the UK are as accurate as the Barnett formula. They miss out too much vital information to be remotely realistic.
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…and how much is it to rent or buy in UK compared to Jersey?
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Leah
You missed one massive factor.
Rent or Mortgage!
The so called £5000 disappears in rent or mortgage in Jersey.
Jersey: One bedroom Flat £1000 (JEP)
London Central: One Bedroom Flat £600(web)
Jersey is simular priced to Kensington!!
A survey last year found a single person earning £30,000 in Jersey was worse off than a person in London on the same wage.
The people who benefit are the ones who come from the UK and dont get taxed the 40% on their wages.
Now we all choose to live in Jersey, some with no chose!
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Mark G… I’m pretty sure I haven’t missed anything. I think it’s possible people haven’t factored in the quality of the housing. For many in the UK the difference you state in rent or mortgage is immediately overwhelmed by extremely high commuting costs alone (high commuting times also of course, taking away from family and social time). For many others the difference simply doesn’t exist. For my sister to get a 3-bed house as near her work as the longest travel distance in Jersey costs the same as in Jersey and she’s in Inverness, not London, and her salary is less than the equivalent here and public transport is not even an option.
Having been in various flats in St Helier, their equivalent in size/layout/quality would be only slightly less rent in Glasgow and easily the same in Edinburgh. Absolutely tiny 1-bed flats, 8 miles outside Glasgow city centre, are selling at over 200,000; commute costs from there would be high also, and safety still not comparable to that in Jersey so insurance would be more.
There are some very cheap places in UK cities, but most people would simply not feel remotely safe living there, never mind that living there would bump up travel and insurance costs! There clearly are extremely cheap places in Jersey also. In my work I see couples on very small incomes who manage to live here and raise children, they could not remotely afford the rent you mention. Question is, would you be happy living where they do? Possibly not. But, if not, then you certainly wouldn’t be happy living in these supposedly ‘cheap’ places in the UK either.
There are indeed cheap places to live everywhere but would you be happy living in those places? I was the one pointing out that every detail of living costs needs taken into account before making Jersey/UK comparison and that simply isn’t possible on a forum like this.
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it depends where you look to find prices to rent or buy.
Rental values over here are £700 starting for a complete mould ridden hovel 2 bedroom flat per month. and thats with quallies.
a 2 bedroom house in cornwall is £500 a month. yes the wages are lower over there but cost of living is as well. For the person who asked me whether i have lived and worked in the uk yes i have and i went to university there. So i do understand how it works over there and its alot cheaper than over here. But everything is relative to cost of living.
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It is just not as simple as people are trying to make out. We need to include other costs like factors fees, council tax, sewerage, water rates, commuting costs (one of the biggest problems for many UK homes), fines incurred for simply loading and unloading heavy items into your own home, or the cost to be allowed to park outside your own home (upwards of £100 a month in many cases). You can look at simple rental values, but having rented and bought in the UK I know just how many other costs creep in that are not stated when you rent or buy a place.
Never mind that if you want to live in comparable surroundings to Jersey then you have to go to a Scottish island. You do not want to know how much it would cost you to live there, people are having to leave in their droves and sell up to rich English folk looking for ‘holiday homes on a quiet island’ (sound familiar?). For starters, fuel is 40p more expensive per litre. To go to hospital (for admission or outpatients) requires taking your car by ferry to the mainland (say £120 a time plus overnight hotel stay). Public transport is non-existent to all intents and purposes and your salary will be lower even than on mainland UK. And of course, on the mainland parking costs alone are upwards of 5-times what they are here but for many that is a 6-day a week cost.
I reckon when all costs are factored in (and as I’ve stated before there are shops I can afford to buy in here that I couldn’t in the UK because of the difference in VAT and GST) the difference is not going to be as great as many of you seem to think when it comes to necessities, but you get a higher quality of life and more time to spend with family and friends (due to the lack of a commute). I’m sure plenty of people in the UK would happily pay to have more free time.
I’m not saying you don’t have issues over here, I’m not saying it’s not pricey, but other people simply have other costs and other issues and it is wrong to just assume you’d be better off in the UK (where you can at least move to easily if you really want, but those on the UK have no options available to them for moving away!)
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hands up who voted for him for chief minister ? i didnt vote so it aint my fault
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Why do they not tax the super rich more…if you earn over a million quid, tax them 25%…trust me, they won’t miss it!!!
I predict 20% means 20% will be 28% means 28% within 2 years!
but having worked in the uk, we should think ourselves lucky…try being taxed at 40% with vat 17.5% and the costs of living in london…i bascially took less money home than a one-armed boy doing a paper round!
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Leah- where are these shops in Jersey who do not charge VAT?I know of only one high street store that takes a percentage off the VAT inclusive price but surely you realise that NEXT,Monsoon,Marks and Spencers etc all charge the VAT.In fact in the UK Marks are now reducing their price at the till to take in to account the recent drop in VAT to 15% yet in Jersey they are still charging the fully inclusive price.
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I don’t shop in any of those Julie so that doesn’t help I guess, but previously the only time I could look at Esprit or French Connection goods was when I holidayed in New York. In Glasgow their prices just seemed way to high for what you got. But my point has just been that not everything is cheaper in the UK although I regularly hear it said over here that that is the case.
As for Marks over here, it’s a franchise as I understand it so not the same. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some unbelievably greedy people were charging them ridiculous rent, certainly a big part of the reason for one of the recent shop closures on Jersey was a ridiculous, and competely morally unjustifiable, hike in rent for 2009. In some cases the cost problem starts before the shop itself even comes into it.
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I was in the UK over the New Year. I did a huge clothes shop, spent several hundreds pounds in Next on clothes for my children, and also spent a fair bit on clothes for myself in other stores.
Not only were the clothes much cheaper in the UK than in Jersey, I know I went in to check, I had more choice.
I estimate I saved more than the price of our flights!
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Leah im interested have you ever lived in the uk?
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Leah- I believe that the franchise which owns M & S in Jersey is a very large group who own a large percentage of the island so I don’t feel too worried that they are struggling to survive as some smaller businesses may be.What annoys me is that people are led to believe that Jersey has GST at 3% and NO VAT which is-in most shops-completely untrue as they charge both(although some have “incorporated” the GST)As people often point out on this website they save a forune from buying in the UK or online.
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