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WQ.263/2020
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND RESOURCES
BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 13th JULY 2020
Question
In light of the Income Forecasting Group report of spring 2020, will the Minister provide members with a list of any potential fiscal and benefit measures (for instance, increasing the Income Tax rate by 1%) consequently drawn up by her department for ministerial consideration of the potential impact of such measures on States revenues?
Answer
The current focus of Treasury officials is on the development of a range of measures to stimulate Jersey's economy and to help businesses and taxpayers recover financially from the Coronavirus Pandemic. These include, for example, work on the extension of the Payroll Co-Funding Scheme; and on the removal of the prior-year basis of paying taxes.
For the longer run, as Ministers have flagged in several places, the Assembly will need to consider options for improving States income from revenues such as taxation, to pay off the debts that Government has incurred to support islanders through these unprecedented times.
At this early stage, a wide range of ideas are being generated across Government – and by external stakeholders – some of which will be quickly discounted and others which perhaps merit further development.
The Minister will set out any serious options being explored by Treasury Officials in the next Government Plan. In the meantime, the Minister considers it would be inappropriate to expose such early thinking in the public domain.