PERSONAL income tax returns are to be made more efficient and accurate when they go online from next January. The Income Tax Office has developed a new website with help from the Guernsey Society of Chartered and Certified Accountants.
Treasury and Resources believes it will dramatically improve the income tax return service for islanders.
Income tax training manager Chris Cox said the online form worked much the same way as a paper one but was less confusing and easier to complete.
‘We spent a lot of time working with accountants because we see them as having the best knowledge and we also anticipate the biggest take up to be from them,’ he said.
‘The online form will have yes or no answers to every question rather than the blank spaces of paper forms.
‘At the moment a lot of manpower is used up on tasks such as opening envelopes and this will reduce the need for that, although I don’t anticipate it will have too much impact on the time taken to process forms initially.’
The Income Tax Office handles around 40,000 personal tax returns every year and some 10,000 of these are handed in during the first month.
The website was developed by Webbs Labs and is formally certified as secure to protect users’ financial information.
Central services manager Tania Sargent said the States was playing catch-up with other areas that already offered an online service.
‘We were aware that other jurisdictions already have this service and I see us now as being on a level playing field and becoming competitive with the rest of the world,’ she said.
‘As taxpayers ourselves, we brought our own insight into the design of the online form and considered what we would like to see come from it.’
Fran Snoding, director at Fortis Reads Private Clients, headed a small team of accountants that worked with the tax office throughout the process.
He said the system looked good although whether or not it would be a success would have to wait until it was put into practise.
‘It should fit into most accountants’ internal workflows and I would hope that accountants and agents, along with individual taxpayers, would utilise the system to its fullest potential,’ he said.
The digitalisation of States departments’ services is fully under way with a Single Citizen Sign-On portal.
Treasury and Resources ICT section has created a generic entry screen to be used for other online services in addition to personal tax returns.
This means islanders will enter their details on one website and the information, with their consent, can be passed on to other departments to save time.
States ICT director Jane Wonnacott said it was the first step in bringing online services to the Bailiwick.
‘The Income Tax Office is taking the lead in being the first department to fully implement an integrated electronic solution and others will follow,’ she said.
‘We believe this is an important step to providing better services to citizens while reducing the cost of running public departments.’
A number of future ICT Treasury projects are already in the pipeline. A company’s registry project that will allow businesses to be established within a matter of hours and is scheduled for July next year.
Treasury member Mark Dorey said the department was always working within its budget to move forward with ICT.
‘The public perception is you have to be able to offer online services. It’s important that the States keeps up with changing demands,’ he said.
Article posted on 11th October, 2007 - 12.00am
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