CHARGING GST on all goods bought from large online retailers such as Amazon is putting financial pressure on food banks, according to one charity.
St Vincent de Paul operations manager Dominic Egré said food banks which relied on bulk-buying online were struggling to afford higher prices.
The de minimis threshold at which Islanders pay the 5% sales tax on imported products dropped from £135 to £60 in July this year, but larger retailers (those which have an annual turnover of at least £300,000) are now subject to the same rules as the Island’s high-street retailers.
While charities are entitled to reclaim the added GST, this ‘ties up funds for quite a long time’, said Mr Egré.
The ‘perfect storm’ of rising food costs, GST changes and the end of Jersey’s daily mail plane have meant ‘more and more suppliers won’t ship to Jersey’, he said.
Mr Egré said: ‘It is now very expensive to buy online and from England. Buying from Jersey is just too expensive. We would love to support local businesses and suppliers but it’s not practical for charities.’
Mr Egré added: ‘This [GST change] has also complicated our system where people could donate items through an online wish list but the items now get stopped by Customs and it’s the charity which has to pay GST to release them. People think they are being nice but they are hitting us with unexpected GST costs.’
The operations manage was speaking as St Vincent de Paul is planning to trial a new mobile food bank to go out to rural parishes, in an initiative designed to try and understand the true level of demand outside St Helier.
St Peter Constable Richard Vibert said: ‘There is hidden poverty in the Island without a doubt. I think there is a view that poverty doesn’t exist in the rural parishes. People generally think it is an urban issue, so it is fair to say that rural parish poverty has been overlooked.’
He added: ‘I think extending food banks to rural areas is a good idea and there certainly is demand for it. Without a doubt, there is a greater need for food banks than there has been before.’
Mr Vibert added that the cost-of-living crisis had meant that, for many, life had not ‘gone back to normality’ after Covid, and he said that he would be happy to work alongside charities interested in bringing a mobile food bank to St Peter.
