Outside firms ‘must pay tax’

As things stand under the ‘zero-ten’ system, shareholders of Jersey firms will pay tax on company profit as if it was personal income, but non-resident shareholders of non-Jersey firms will pay no tax at all. Senator Perchard said that would give ‘foreign’ firms an unfair advantage and was ‘morally indefensible’. He says that Treasury Minister Terry Le Sueur has to come up with a way to tax non-local firms, or Jersey-owned companies will just transfer ownership overseas and pay no tax at all. Finance companies will pay a fixed ten per cent under the ‘zero-ten’ proposals, but Senator Perchard said that some of the revenue from non-finance firms was under threat, because they could shift ownership out of Jersey and pay nothing.