Tax compliance interventions (FOI)Tax compliance interventions (FOI)
Produced by the Freedom of Information officeAuthored by Government of Jersey and published on
13 July 2021.Prepared internally, no external costs.
Request
A
For 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021 so far, please provide:
how many tax compliance cases were there? How much additional revenue was obtained following these
how many tax compliance cases were not resolved and passed on to the Attorney General for potential prosecution
how many voluntary disclosures were made through the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme/by other means? How much was paid as a result of these disclosures
B
Since the Revenue Administration Law (2019) came into force, introducing new penalties for taxpayers, please state, broken down by year:
Response
A
Tax Compliance Interventions Made and Their Value
The different types of compliance interventions conducted by Revenue Jersey are set out in Section 2.6 of the Code of Practice on Revenue Jersey Compliance Interventions, published on 1 April 2021. Methodologies and procedures for counting the various kinds of compliance interventions continue to evolve and historical data is incomplete, particularly for years earlier than 2017. The Comptroller estimates that at least 200 enhanced compliance checks of various types have been performed annually since 2018 although, during the Covid-19 lockdown periods in 2020, new interventions were fewer and more tightly focused on sectors of the economy least affected by lockdown issues.
Year | Additional Tax Revenues |
| 2016 | <£3 million |
| 2017 | £5.5 million |
| 2018 | £6.8 million |
| 2018 (2017 Tax Disclosure Opportunity) | £1.65 million |
| 2019 | £8.8 million |
| 2020 | £10 million |
| 2021 (Half-year estimated performance – unaudited) | Around £10 million |
Revenue information is not separately available about Voluntary Disclosures. The number of Voluntary Disclosures received is available from 2017 as follows.
Year | Number of Voluntary Disclosures |
| 2017 | Around 243 (2017 was the year of the Tax Disclosure Opportunity) |
| 2018 | 50 |
| 2019 | 9 |
| 2020 | 23 |
| 2021 | 17 |
Over the last 15 years or so, very few criminal tax prosecutions have taken place in Jersey. Most under-declarations of tax have been dealt with civilly. During the period 2016 to date, a small number of cases has been referred to the Law Officers’ Department for consideration (as “sample cases” to test the robustness of legal provisions). This has confirmed the effective inoperability of some of Jersey’s tax law. Defects in the tax law continue to be addressed through the Revenue Transformation Programme, most recently in the draft Taxes Amendment Law lodged on 18 May 2021.
B
Information is not yet available regarding the operation of new penalties created by the 2019 Revenue Administration Law. This law commenced on 1 January 2020 for compliance interventions which began after that date. (To the extent that new compliance interventions commenced during the Covid-19 lockdown periods in 2020 and 2021, many of those interventions remain in progress and data has not yet been collated.) This information is therefore exempt under Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as it is not held.
Article applied
Article 10 Obligation of scheduled public authority to confirm or deny holding information
(1) Subject to paragraph (2), if –
(a) a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority; and
(b) the authority does not hold the information,
it must inform the applicant accordingly.
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