Guernsey's senior politician hints at a rise in income tax

Thursday, 26 September 2024 11:45

Deputy Lyndon Trott tells the Assembly something must be done to deal with the burgeoning deficit for 2024.

Guernsey's exchequer may end 2024 overdrawn by £46M.

Updating States members, deputy Lyndon Trott said £15M of that will constitute a one off tax repayment to a local bank.

He said this was highly unusual and not the fault of Revenue Services, formerly the Income Tax Authority.

But it leaves Guernsey short of money and needing to bolster its reserves. Deputy Trott says something must be done:

"We need to address this lack of resilience, we need to stabilise our base to be able to invest in the future for our infrastructure and for growth."

During the GST debate, deputy Trott mooted the idea of a rise in the basic, 20% rate of income tax.

Formality around not disclosing what is in the budget prevented him from saying it outright in the Assembly, when answering a direct question from deputy Yvonne Burford:

"What I can say sir is that deputy Burford is an intelligent woman, and she has followed debate on these matters quite closely, and as a consequence of that it sounds like she would be less surprised than she might otherwise be should the budget have that particular proposal."

The budget is released in October and debated by deputies at a special sitting in November.