NEARLY 70 000 Barbadians have filed their income tax returns electronically and, according to Inland Revenue senior inspector Neville Clarke, the system has proved to be a success with seven in every ten working Barbadians completing their forms on the computer.
Clarke told the MIDWEEK?NATION that 68 000 Barbadians had filed income tax and reverse tax credit forms online.
“Our public relations programme that included town hall meetings has been a success. A lot of the work we have put in has paid off. We have had very good success with filing online.
“The accounting firms have picked up a lot as well. They have done a lot more filing online this year. We have had a lot of response from them.
“Last year, we had a high number of people filing online, but the difference now is that many more people are doing it without our assistance.
“There is still some work to be done, but we have made some strides,” said Clarke at a telecommunications exhibition yesterday in Heroes Square that also featured Digicel, LIME, Department of Emergency Management (DEM)?and the Barbados Fire Service.
Clarke acknowledged that some people had issues relating to registering and getting document locator numbers (DLNs) or assessment numbers.
“They have been asking for that information so that they can get themselves registered and file online.
“We realize that we need to do a lot more education when it comes to people dealing with the registration process.
“Once you have been registered online, you don’t need a DLN?or assessment number to get back onto the system, but people have been calling to get that number again, not realizing that once they have been registered online, they only need to log into the system.
“So we need to educate the public a bit more in the areas of registration and in the area of passwords.
“When they get their password, they tend to use anything and then they forget it and in a matter of weeks they come to get it reset,” he said.
Every year for the last two weeks in April, hundreds of Barbadians converged on the Inland Revenue to meet the deadline but, according to Clarke, the numbers were down this year because of the educational drive and the heavier focus on online filing.
“We had several people coming in the last two weeks, but it was nowhere near what obtained in previous years,” he said.
