From Mike Truscott.
JOHN Clennett’s letter (JEP, 15 February) suggests that the blame for our £100m black hole is down to the EU and company tax. I venture to suggest it is down to the States of Jersey and Senator Terry Le Sueur.

Mr Clennett makes a number of excellent points, notably exactly what pressure was put on our government to make these changes to company tax, and by whom. Has anyone in our government bothered to calculate what the financial effect would have been if the status quo prevailed?

I was MD of a local company for over 25 years, during which millions of pounds were paid over to the States Treasurer in tax. Now, to the delight of local and in most cases ultimately the UK parent company, their profits have been boosted by the unsolicited gift resulting from zero tax. Was this ever asked for? Was it expected? And would it have made any difference to the continued operations of the company? As far as I was concerned, no to all three.

To reiterate Mr Clennett’s point, it is the public who now have to bear the cost of this ‘gift’ in the form of GST (and who can be sure at what rate this could rise to in the future?).

We have an excellent and well-regulated finance industry and we should have put our faith in our reputation and not allowed London and Brussels to bully us in to making decisions which have had such a dramatic effect on our income.
We really will not know the answers to any of the above unless Senators Le Sueur and Ozouf come clean and give them to us.