GST off food ‘will cost States £6m a year’
Thursday 26th March 2009, 2:54PM GMT.
JERSEY could lose £6 million in tax revenue if the States decide to take GST off food and household energy next week, States Members were told on Tuesday.
Assistant Treasury Minister Eddie Noel (pictured) was responding to a question about the cost of implementing the tax on goods and services.
Deputy Noel informed Members that GST had cost the Island £2.5 million since the States approved the introduction of the tax in 2005. And he said that GST is expected to cost £1 million a year to administer in order to raise £50 million in tax.
Deputy Carolyn Labey has lodged a proposition for the second time to exempt all foods that are exempt from VAT in the UK, as well as household electricity, oil and gas. It will be debated by the States next week.
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…and a good accountant who understands exchange rates will easily be able to make that back up.
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I like the majority do not “like” paying tax. I earn my money with hard graft and want to keep as much as is possible.
I understand that to live in a society we must pay tax. So long as that tax is administrated fairly I accept that’s the way it must be.
GST is just another tax, as I said before I do not “like” tax. But GST is a fair tax, The more I spend the more tax I pay, I make the choice as to how much I spend, this tax money can then be used to target the less well off.
Of coarse another way is for us all, stinking rich or gutter poor to pay a poll tax. £500 per year per head should be enough to do away with GST.
Then someone like little Red Geoff could give it away to deserving causes.
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GST should NOT be on food -we do not have VAT on food in the U.K.–but please do not tell our unelected PM Brown or WASTER Brown as he is better known here !!! He would tax the air we breath if he could
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GST seems like a fair tax to some extent – more well off people earn more therefore buy more and pay more GST.
But the tax is not fair to the planet, any new taxes should be aimed at reducing Methane and CO2 output, e.g. all forms of fuel.
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The States could GAIN £6 million if they stopped throwing our money out of the window all day long.
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Whether to take GST off food is debatable but the sugestion that we should follow the UK VAT definition of ‘food’ should most definately not be entertained. It took them 13 years (and millions of pounds of taxpayers cash on legal bills) to decide whether a chocolate covered teacake was a VAT-payable biscuit or a VAT-free cake!
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Putting GST on food means that those on the lowest incomes have to pay a much greater proportion of their income in tax than those on higher incomes. That is why GST is a bad tax. We can choose whether to buy luxuries but we all have to buy food.
Taking the tax off food will not return the cost of food to what it was before. The shops have to pay GST on rent, electricity and any other services they use. My guess is that GST actually put up many prices by 10% rather than the 3% that we were told. Taking it off food will mean that the increase becomes closer to 7% and does not do what many people hope for.
The only fair answer is to remove GST totally and then to increase income tax a bit for those on the highest incomes, perhaps making it 25% for over £100,000 a year. Those who are here as wealthy immigrants should have to pay tax at the same rate as everyone else rather than having it capped.
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“will cost States £6m a year”. That figure could easily be countered by not spending such lavish amounts of taxpayer’s money on things we don’t need or WANT.
I LOVE some of the sculptures around the town, but do we really NEED them all ? Did we NEED the bubble steam clock thing ? Do we NEED to be paying handouts to those (very unfortunate) people that aren’t entitled to compensation for their employer entering liquidation ? Shouldn’t we be focused on tightening-up on that through legislative means ?
Employing somebody on a six-figure salary to provide them with confirmation as to how Jersey families can save money … erm … helloooooooooooo ???
Ultimately if the States were more careful with HOW they spent our cash, they wouldn’t need to whinge about not getting enough of it !!
Does my head in it does.
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TLS has cost us 3million+ this year and its only March
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Well if we add a reduction in GST receipts of £6m, to a reduction in JEC receipts if Alan Breckon has his way, we are well on the way to emulating Guernsey’s finances, something many of our backbench States members have been advocating for the last few years.
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When will people realise ?
If you sting the rich they will go elsewhere, they can afford to.
Then it will be left to us to fill the black hole with increased taxation.
We must give those with vast assets and deposit accounts an attractive deal to encourage them to stay, and move here.
I would much rather 1% of their income supporting us than none.
And as for being unfair,imoral.unethical, etc.
Communism failed the people of Russia big style no amount of posturing by the lazy who are unprepared to gamble their own time and effort into amassing their own fortune will persuade the rich to give theirs away.
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I think GST is point less and its just another way to get the bill payers to loose out on more money, and making shops go bust. If this carries on then no one will be able to buy anything and the shops will all shut down because they will be getting no money in. And I would like my childrens children to grow up in a society where they dont have to worrie about money.
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Unfortunately the public appear to have been totally hoodwinked by the Consumer Council Party regarding GST. Firstly it is untrue that Jersey is the only place in the world where we tax food. The truth is that the UK is one of the few that does not and as a result has had to pay for a hugely complex and very costly bureaucracy to collect this tax and equally UK retailers have a costly and complex task to calculate it.
And whilst in the UK kids are taxed on their chocolate biscuits, millionaires get their caviar tax free – is this really fair?
Nobody wants to pay tax and yet everybody wants proper funding for our health service, police education and our infrastructure. If people really think that removing GST on food will save them any money just think again. Tax is only effective if it is kept simple and as soon as we start making exemptions the collection costs, both government and the commercial will go up resulting in even higher prices which will hit the low earners doubly hard as they will also loose their annual GST bonus.
Please keep GST simple. If we switch to VAT it will very soon rise to 15% or 17.5% as any less and will just not be economic. We will all have to pay a lot more and have nothing extra in return.
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What makes you think GST will not go up ? the U.K started with 7.5% what goes up keeps going up you have been warned ? GOOD LUCK
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The problem with GST as I see it is that whenever the States squander our hard earned money, they will simply increase GST to whatever figure they pull out of a hat to compensate for the loss. This is scary and we will soon end up paying far more than the current 3%!
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PJG I would prefer no rich people over here if they are too tight to pay their way. Let them go and make use of somone else. They have pushed up prices, especially of properties this has helped no one except the property developers and the rich themselves.
I don’t like anyone milking the system it is immoral, unfair and unjust. Let them go elsewhere. As regards communism it failed purely and simply due to greed and selfish, the very reason capitalism does so well as it appeals to peoples’ baser instincts. Most will do anything to get one over on someone else. Is this a good society to live in?
Not everyone who is poor is lazy, however the majority are exploited by big business and the rich for their own gain. They don’t give a damn about others as long as they get the money coming in. It isn’t a case of persuading the rich to give this away. How can you say keeping at least 80% for yourself is giving it away? Why musy people be so self centred and greedy to expect 99%? They wouldn’t put up with this if the boot was on the other foot so why do they expect others to wear it?
There are also lazy rich people who couldn’t care less about anyone else except themselves so this goes both ways. They however expect everything from their employees and more for often a poor wage. So much for a caring society.
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I am fed up with paying so much tax. I am a middle earner and know of multi millionaires paying far less income tax than me, although their bank interest alone exceeds my annual salary.
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Well said CJ. For some reason welfare claimants are blasted as scroungers however more tax is lost than they could ever take in allowances and yet no one objects.
I know some as well who are laughing all the way to the bank. I can’t really blame them if our government are either to stupid or scared to tax them properly.
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