FROM?JANUARY?1, INLAND Revenue will cut off direct assistance to nearly 20 000 people who would normally require help completing and filing tax returns.
Acting Commissioner of Inland Revenue, Frank Forde, told WEEKEND NATION the department could no longer occupy its time in offering assistance while neglecting its core business.
“What I am saying is that we are not going to take up our time while our core business . . . suffered. We will have problems doing our work and meeting our target if we are just dealing with taxpayers,” Forde said.
“The reason is simple. A taxpayer should not give his or her signature to a company or organisation. It is just like when you go to the bank, you should not disclose your ATM number. We don’t want any line up here at the office.
“If they have to go to the [United States] Embassy or the Immigration Department to fill out forms, they don’t get assistance. If you look at the lines at the building during filing time, most of those people are a lot of young people who went to secondary school . . . and we are still encouraging people to come to the office, take up a lot of the department’s time.
“Don’t forget, they don’t only come during the filing season but all during the year,” he added.
“So if we continue that, how can we continue with our core business which is to collect some taxes? What I am saying is, how are we going to deal with our core business if we are concentrating on only helping people to get back money?
“How are we going to collect money if all our staff are engaged in doing this type of work? So we have to shift that,” argued Forde, who noted that people who do not have access to the Internet could still file manually.
Forde said the number of people seeking assistance over the years has been increasing.
“Thousands come to the department for assistance. I think about near 20 000. And not only that, we talk about productivity in Barbados. There are people getting time off from work to spend hours to get a simple form fill out.”
The acting commissioner said the department was looking at ways to educate the public on filling out the tax return forms by training employers to assist their employees with filing their returns.
“And we are going to also use the media to explain to people how to fill out the forms in detail and how to get on the Internet (website). Over the next couple of months, we will be putting out information on how to complete the forms both manually and electronically and we will be issuing videos at certain clubs,” he said.
Forde added that he did not think the new move would have a negative impact on those who genuinely needed assistance.
Several people who have filed their tax return electronically over the past year have not yet received their refunds.
Forde said that matter was outside the department’s control.
“It is outside of the department that we have no control over. We know we have one or two problems and we are trying to get those problems ironed out,” Forde said.