Net profits of incorporated Jersey businesses (FOI)

Request

Please can you confirm how many incorporated Jersey businesses made net profits between the designations (below) and that over 1 million;

1. £250,000 - £499,999

2. £500,000 - £749,999

3. £750,000 - £999,999

4. £1,000,000

I would be most grateful, if data could be provided for the individual year(s) of 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.

Response

In looking to respond to this request, for the majority of years no information is held by the Comptroller of Revenue. In respect of other years the Comptroller of Revenue only holds partial information, some of which may have come to him in the exercise of his ancillary (non-tax-related) functions and where legal advice is being sought on his authority to share information with Scheduled Public Authorities.

The Comptroller is unable to respond to this request as he does not hold the required information. The Comptroller has considered if he could provide a response which fulfils some elements of the request but concluded he cannot until he receives further legal advice

For the years 2016 and 2017, Revenue Jersey did not ask for accounting profits in the company tax return and so the Comptroller doesn’t hold this information.

For the year 2018 Revenue Jersey only asked for accounting profits from a limited range of entities and so the Comptroller holds partial information.

For the year 2019, Revenue Jersey asked for accounting profits for the majority - but not all - corporate entities tax resident in Jersey. Those types of entities for which the Comptroller of Revenue does not hold this information include Public Collective Investment Funds and Jersey companies who were tax resident outside of Jersey.

For the year 2020, the corporate tax return is not due to be filed until 31 December 2021. As such, the Comptroller of Revenue does not hold any information for this year at this time.

In terms of the 2018 and 2019 years of assessment, for which the Comptroller of Revenue holds partial information, the information was provided on the basis of the tax residence of an entity and as such it would require significant manual intervention (significantly in excess of the prescribed 12.5 hours allowed) to conduct the partial analysis in respect of Jersey incorporated entities. Therefore, Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Some of the required information may be obtained from the Jersey Financial Services Commission - https://www.jerseyfsc.org/ Therefore, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) law 2011 has been applied.

Articles applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.