Measuring Jersey’s Economy (FOI)

​Request

With regard to the Statistics Jersey paper “Measuring Jersey’s Economy GVA and GDP – 2017” dated 3 October 2017 please supply information which discloses and / or estimates income tax revenues over the period 2002 to date from the GVA sectors distinguishing between corporate taxation revenues (where applicable) and individual taxation revenues.

Please also provide analysed information over those years on the income and income tax revenues arising from sources outside the GVA measurements.

Response

The information sought in this request is not held by either Revenue Jersey or Statistics Jersey.

In explanation, Revenue Jersey data and Statistics Jersey data are held separately and the basis of determining the sectors by Statistics Jersey currently differs from the basis used by Revenue Jersey. It is not possible to produce a direct like for like comparison of the two data sets.

Irrespective that the data is not held it is not possible to identify tax payable by sector by individual as business income would potentially only form one source out of many on which the individual may have been taxed. With the exception of financial services companies and construction companies the other sectors referred to in the report are likely to have been taxed at the rate of 0% from year of assessment 2009 to date. The definition of financial services companies for tax purposes is in accordance with Article 123D of the Income Tax Law. The determination of companies that are within the financial services sector in the report will differ significantly. Finally, from 2009 year of assessment, a construction company will only be liable to tax at 20% if its profits are derived from property development. A construction company that provides building services to a third party from 2009 will be liable to tax at 0%.

Article 8 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 requires disclosure of information held by a scheduled public authority. It does not require a public authority to produce estimates where that information is not held.

Articles applied

Article 3 Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 4 Meaning of “information to be supplied by a public authority”

(1) For the purposes of this Law, the information held by a public authority at the time when a request for the information is received is the information that is to be taken to have been requested