By Sue-Ann Wayow
BUSINESSES which have not paid taxes in the past 15 months will soon be able to make payments without incurring any increases.
The tax amnesty announcement was made by Finance Minister Colm Imbert in the Senate on Tuesday.
Imbert was reading the Finance Bill 2021.
He said, “Since we know that businesses are struggling, that we will introduce this amnesty so that persons who for no reason other than the difficulties of the pandemic, have not paid their taxes on time within the last 15 months or so would now be able to do so without having to incur penalties and interests which is quite substantial.”
The minister said the tax amnesty was proven to be a very productive measure in terms of retrieving unpaid taxes.
“The last amnesty that we implemented yielded an astonishing sum of $2.4billion, we never expected that. We were expecting maybe a billion for the most,” he said.
In his Bill presentation, upon reaching Clause 13 which seeks to amend the Income Tax Act, Chap. 75:01, Imbert said, “ We are looking at some amendments which will clarify and confirm the complete range of taxes that are going to be captured by the tax amnesty because it is the Government’s intention to capture as many if not all existing taxes in all the various tax laws.”
He added that he and the ministry have been bombarded by requests from persons to defer taxes but he maintains that Government needed taxes to provide the much needed Covid-19 relief to the population.
According to the Finance Bill, 2021, “Clause 13 of the Bill would amend the Income Tax Act, Chap. 75:01 by inserting a new section 103A to provide for a waiver of certain outstanding liabilities in respect of taxes due and owing under the Income Tax Act for the years up to and including the year ending 31st December, 2020 and during the period 1st January, 2021 to 31st May, 2021.
“The amendment further provides that the waiver would only apply where a taxpayer, under the Income Tax Act, pays his outstanding taxes during the period 5th July, 2021 to 17th September, 2021 or by such later date as the Minister of Finance prescribes.”
