Individuals and companies that failed to pay taxes or file returns will be granted amnesty from today until September 15.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who made the announcement in Parliament on Friday, said that the Board of Inland Revenue will begin to receive returns and tax payments from today, although “the Act will probably be assented to on Friday.”He said the provision will apply retroactively once the law is passed.
According to Imbert, the amnesty is “all-embracing” and “all-covering” and will give taxpayers an “opportunity to clean up their system (and) pay their taxes before the introduction of the Revenue Authority.”
The tax amnesty addresses “individual, corporation, petroleum profits, supplementary profits, value-added, petroleum levy, green fund, business levy, hotel, insurance and a number of other taxation measures.” Interest and penalties will also be waived on gambling and casino taxes, as well as land and building taxes.
“So, there are a number of persons who find themselves stuck because they have not paid their land and building taxes from ten years ago. They wish to engage in the sale of a property and the mortgage institutions are insisting that they clear it.
“But because they didn’t pay ten years ago, there are substantial penalties and interest that have accumulated over the last ten years, so this addresses that anomaly and allows persons to avail themselves of this provision,” the minister explained.
“What we’ve tried to do in this amnesty, is to cover all types of taxes and levies that are subject to interest on penalties for late payment. So we are waiving the penalty on all interest on penalties that are due and payable on outstanding taxes if virtually every type.”
Imbert said Government expects to collect $500 million in outstanding taxes during the amnesty period.
“The last tax amnesty by this administration was in 2016 and it was for a period of two and a half months and the target at that time was $500 million. But in the two and a half months, we collected $750 million,” he said.
Imbert said that expected $500 million in revenue will also assist in offsetting shortfalls of revenue that occurred in the first quarter of the year because of depressed oil prices.
He said low oil prices affect the supplementary petroleum tax and royalties that are collected. —Kyron Regis