Taxation of high value residents (FOI)

Request

For each of the tax years 2014, 2015 and 2016, please state how many residents who were originally granted residential status under 1(1)(k), ("High Value Residents") paid less income tax than the minimum they were obliged to pay annually for the first 10 years of their residency in Jersey.

The purpose of this enquiry is to establish the number of High Value Residents who reduce payments of Income Tax to the Comptroller of Taxes once they have completed 10 years' continuous residence in the Island.

Response

One of the significant changes made to the HVR (“High Value Resident”) regime as part of Budget 2018 was to place a legal obligation upon any HVR approved from 1 January 2018 onwards to ensure that they make a personal income tax contribution of £145,000 per annum (subject to a potential increase in 2023).

Any HVR that was approved prior to that date was not legally ‘obliged’ to pay an amount annually. Instead, an expectation existed at the time of approval that future income would be sufficient to meet a given tax liability, which was £125,000 for those approved in each of the year years 2014, 2015, and 2016. Of the applicants approved in these years (of which there were 48), fewer than five had a liability of less than £125,000 in any of the years 2014, 2015, or 2016.

Disclosure control has been applied to numbers fewer than five under Article 25 (Personal information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the Law).

NOTE: the Control of Housing and Work (Residential and Employment Status) (Jersey) Regulations 2013 provide that an individual who has entitled status under Regulation 2(1) (e) (ie is an HVR) may relinquish that status once he / she has become Entitled by virtue of any other Regulation.

This means that after 10 years residence an individual may stop being an HVR and if they do they would no longer be able to access the preferential tax rates that apply to HVRs.

Article applied
Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.