A spokesman for the Chief Commissioner of Revenue has released information outlining the total tax arrears by businesses and the strategy to collect them.

Revenue Services has compiled a list of all the businesses that owe taxes to the Kingdom. As of today, businesses owe a total of $18.7 million in tax arrears.

We have an extensive tax arrears collection programme in place, led by the Large Business Division of Revenue Services, to recover all the arrears plus penalties according to our tax laws. The Department is managing each case in accordance with the law, set out in the Revenue Services Administration Act, and the proper procedures must be followed.

Businesses must ensure that they meet their repayment obligations because we will not look favourably upon those who fail to comply. We have worked with each business that owes taxes to put in place a repayment process that is manageable but also allows the business to continue trading.

Revenue Services has extensive powers - and can even shut down a business if they fail to pay their taxes and we have done before.

According to the spokesman "one of our main tasks now is to clear all the tax arrears by businesses and we will not hesitate to use the powers we have to collect those arrears. These arrears belong to the Government to be used for paying our public services so it is critical that we collect them quickly."

Revenue Services aims to clear all tax arrears within the next twelve months and I would encourage all those businesses who owe taxes to make immediate contact with the department to clear their arrears because we will not hesitate to put the padlocks up on the doors of businesses that are not compliant.



The public must also understand that the tax details of any individual person or business is confidential and is protected by law so we will not discuss any case publicly. Ministry of Finance, 02/11/07.