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More than 80% of the letters received from the community on how to cut costs in the States suggested proposals for tax raising measures instead of cost saving actions.
Deputy Lyndon Trott says this proves that the community “aren’t stupid” and that they know “taxes will need to rise”.
The topic came up during a period of questioning after the President of Policy and Resources’ update statement.
He was asked by Deputy Dave Mahoney if P&R could confirm when the findings of the cost saving sub-committee will be released.
The ‘Reducing the Cost of Public Services Sub-Committee' was formed to reduce public sector costs by £10million to £16million per year.
The Sub-Committee carried out a scoring exercise to order the hundreds of suggestions supplied by the community and curated a shortlist of 25% of those suggestions. It’s understood that these suggestions will be shared with the various Committees in the coming weeks.
"One of the things that struck me was one particular statistic: Of the letters we received from the community, something like 80% actually addressed tax raising measures rather than cost saving actions,” said Deputy Trott.
“This shows me that the community aren’t stupid. They understand absolutely that we are currently not taking enough of our economic output by way of tax, and it is unsustainable, and taxes will need to rise. The issue is how are those taxes going to be raised.”
He also alluded several times to the fact that Guernsey’s deficit for 2023 roughly equates to the amount of money that could’ve been raised via a 2% tax hike.
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