Income Tax late submission fines (FOI)

​​​​​Request

A

Please advise h​ow many surcharges for late submission of income tax returns were levied last year (in 2023 for the 2022 return)?

B

How many such surcharges were levied in the previous three years' tax returns?

C  

How many complaints have been made to the Government of Jersey, ​whether to the tax department, JerseyMe or any other department within government, about unjustly levied late submission charges for 2022 tax returns?

D

Does the tax department acknowledge any issues with regard to taxpayers claiming to have submitted 2022 returns which do not appear to have been received? If so, what is the reason for this?

E 

What information is required by the income tax department in relation to Yoti, or any other partner organisation, to substantiate the claim that an online return has been sent to the tax department?

Response

A and B

The table below details the penalties issued in respect of returns which were received after the statutory filing date for the years in question.

Late filing penalties are raised on both corporate and personal taxpayers where returns are not received by the statutory due date.  Approximately 100,000 returns are received for each year of assessment.

C

Service complaints are managed through the Government’s Customer Feedback Management System. No complaints have been received through this system regarding late filing penalties for 2022. 

It is possible that a Late Filing Penalty may be waived as part of the resolution of tax disputes.  For example, Revenue Jersey may agree to waive a late filing penalty if the taxpayer can demonstrate that they have not filed on time due to “grave and exceptional circumstances” however, separate records of these waivers are not maintained.  The information is therefore not held, and Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

D

A number of enquiries arise each year from taxpayers who say they have filed on time and that the return must have subsequently been lost by third parties. These are always investigated. Occasional cases have been found where a return filed online failed to be transferred into the tax-assessing system. The reasons for this are always investigated. In each case, the taxpayer presented their receipt given when they submitted their online filing and any LFP has been waived.

E

Taxpayers submitting an online return receive an email confirmation of submission and a PDF copy of their return. An online personal filing can only be made by individuals once their identity has been verified using the Yoti or JerseyMe identification verification services which then gives taxpayers access to their One.Gov.Je account.

Article applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.​