Gail Alexan­der

Af­ter re­cent over­whelm­ing re­sponse—and long lines of peo­ple out­side of the Fi­nance Min­istry— Gov­ern­ment has ex­tend­ed the 2019 Tax Amnesty for two more weeks up to Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 30.

The Fi­nance Min­istry con­firmed this yes­ter­day via a me­dia state­ment. The amnesty was to have end­ed yes­ter­day.

The amnesty was an­nounced by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in his May mid-year re­view. It waived penal­ties from June to Sep­tem­ber 15 on out­stand­ing tax­es, out­stand­ing in­ter­est and out­stand­ing tax re­turns ap­plic­a­ble to com­pa­nies, or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als.

The waiv­er ap­plied where sev­er­al tax­es are due and payable for the years up to and in­clud­ing the year end­ing De­cem­ber 31, 2018, and the tax­es are paid be­fore/dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the Tax Amnesty.

In the last week of the amnesty, how­ev­er, the re­sponse had been huge with long lines of peo­ple out­side the Min­istry's Wright­son Road com­plex, wait­ing for hours to pay tax­es and avoid penal­ties.

Yes­ter­day, an­nounc­ing the ex­ten­sion to month-end, the min­istry said af­ter that, there will be no fur­ther ex­ten­sions of the amnesty in 2019.

The amnesty pro­vides for the waiv­er of in­ter­est on all out­stand­ing tax­es ap­plic­a­ble— but not lim­it­ed to the fol­low­ing tax­es— in­come tax, cor­po­ra­tion tax, pe­tro­le­um prof­its tax, sup­ple­men­tal pe­tro­le­um tax, land and build­ing tax­es, green fund levy, busi­ness levy, tax on gam­bling de­vices, stamp du­ty, val­ue-added tax, heath sur­charge, ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion tax, fi­nan­cial ser­vices tax, in­sur­ance pre­mi­um tax, spe­cial tax

The waiv­er of penal­ties is ap­plic­a­ble and cov­ers: penal­ties on any tax or out­stand­ing tax or in­ter­est for the years up to and in­clud­ing the year end­ing De­cem­ber 31, 2018, where the out­stand­ing tax­es are paid be­fore or dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the Tax Amnesty.

It al­so cov­ers penal­ties on any out­stand­ing re­turn for the years up to and in­clud­ing the year end­ing De­cem­ber 31, 2018, where the re­turn is filed be­fore or dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the Tax Amnesty.