Income Tax IT system (FOI)

Request

Please provide the following information regarding the recently implemented Income Tax IT system.

A

Original budgeted costs and implementation timeline.

B

Total actual cost to date.

C

Projected future costs to implement originally scoped features and additional features.

D

Any other costs over and above original budget.

E

Copies of any reviews, reports, assessments and so on of the success or otherwise of the system/project.

Response

A

The Medium Term Financial Plan 2016-2019 provided £8.9 million in total to replace the (35-year old) ITAX system with a modern computer system which could provide online services for islanders and modern tax-administration capabilities to support the reform of our tax administration.

The development of new systems (and the wider transformation of Jersey’s tax administration, tax laws and tax processes) was expected to take a number of years. Detailed work over the past four years – alongside new and developing international standards - has indicated that development of the new Revenue Management System (RMS) will continue well into the future.

In his 2018 Budget Statement the then Treasury Minister said, “I expect the Taxes Office computer system to be replaced by 2020. If all goes to plan, the Comptroller of Taxes expects online filing to be offered from that time.” In her first Budget Statement, the current Treasury Minister announced that the new Revenue Management System would be introduced in early 2019 for extended testing, before online filing became available.

The delivery of key back-office systems was actually effected in May 2019. Online filing for personal taxpayers was available in January 2020.

A number of milestones outlined in public briefings in autumn 2018 were subsequently deferred and re-scheduled. For example, the transfer of Social Security Contributions into the new Revenue Management System (RMS) was deferred by two years (from 2020 to 2022) to allow mainly for work to remove the Prior-Year Basis of paying taxes (a Covid relief measure) and on the Personal Tax Review – leading to the commencement of implementation of Independent Taxation from 2022.

2023 will also see the modernisation and / or delivery of all remaining online services, originally expected to be completed by 2020 but intentionally paused to synchronise with the implementation of Independent Taxation.

B

£5.4 million had been spent at 31 March 2021. To 30 September 2021, £5.7 million has been spent on the implementation of RMS.

C

At 31 March 2021, it was estimated that it would cost a further £2.3 million to deliver the originally-scoped features of RMS (£7.7 million in total).

D

The costs of the wider Revenue Transformation Programme (which principally encompasses reform of the tax administration; tax law; tax systems / processes; and enhanced staff training) are set out in the published Government Plans for 2020, 2021 and 2022.

E

Internal audit reports are qualified exempt under Article 37 (Audit functions) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Other reports produced for the Comptroller of Revenue on aspects of implementation and contract matters remain commercially sensitive. Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Articles applied

Article 33 (b) - Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Public Interest Test

Whilst we accept that the public may have an interest in the details of Government of Jersey contracts, we believe the exact details are commercially sensitive and that the release of this data could affect the negotiation of future contracts.

Article 37 - Audit function

(1) Information is qualified exempt information –

(a) if it is held by a scheduled public authority mentioned in paragraph (2); and

(b) if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the exercise of any of the authority’s functions in relation to a matter mentioned in paragraph (2)(a) or (b).

Public Interest Test

Having considered the public interest, the Scheduled Public Authority's decision is to withhold the information.