The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Tax Coalition’s chairman yesterday said it would be “fantastic” if quarterly Value-Added Tax (VAT) filers achieved an 85 per cent compliance rate first-time, although he expected many to seek extensions to the April 28 deadline.

Gowon Bowe suggested to Tribune Business that there were “longer lines” than usual at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the Government’s bank, yesterday as VAT registrants raced to pay due taxes before the close of business.

He said this had resulted from the Treasury declining to accept VAT payments “at their window’, but added that any problems businesses encountered in accessing the electronic returns filing system appeared to be “one-off” rather than systemic.

“So far, it’s been very busy,” Mr Bowe told Tribune Business of the rush to meet yesterday’s deadline for March and first quarter returns.

“There are a number of people trying to meet the deadline, and are considering filing for extensions.

“There seemed to be a lot of congestion in the system yesterday [Monday] early on, but by the evening it seemed to have cleaned. It seems like there have been a lot of questions going back and forth to the VAT Department.”

Amid “the final rush” to meet the deadline, Mr Bowe said several VAT registrants had raised concerns with the Coalition that they had been unable to access the electronic filing system.

He added, though, that checks had shown these problems stemmed more from software issues at these companies, rather than any problem at the Government’s end.

“I think they’re more one-offs,” Mr Bowe said. “It’s not a very consistent, perennial theme that people are not accessing the system.”

John Rolle, the acting VAT Comptroller, told Tribune Business earlier this week that the Government would be extremely happy to achieve an 80-90 per cent compliance rate among quarterly filers, meaning their returns and tax payments were both submitted prior to yesterday’s deadline.

“If he gets that, that’s fantastic,” Mr Bowe told Tribune Business. “John said there were a fair amount in by the end of Friday.”

The Tax Coalition chief suggested that the Government would maintain the ‘light touch’ enforcement approach it has employed during VAT’s early days, especially with companies that were attempting to comply and follow the law.

“I don’t think they’re going to lock everyone up who hasn’t made it,” he said. “I think they expect people to be in by the end of the week, so they’re monitoring everything going on. They have a fair amount of activity going on.”