 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of a government information service. I'm your host for today, Geraldine B. Set-Joseph. Now tax season is upon us once more and even though the filing of taxes is something that we do every year, it doesn't help to get a little guidance when needed. So today we're actually joined by two people who are going to offer us some guidance in the guise of Ms. Lesley-Ann Modest, who's the senior tax inspector at the Taxpayer Service Unit, and also Ms. Delia Jabatis-Terres, who is a tax inspector also at the Taxpayer Service Unit. Yes. Okay, so first of all, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having us. Okay, now very basic question to start. Why should individuals and companies file their tax return? It's a statutory obligation of the state that you do so. It affords you actually the client to ensure that enough taxes have been deducted from your employee if you're an individual and when I speak to individual, I speak to employee and also somebody who may be a contractor and have done some work. So you use that opportunity to file and pay, if necessary, the correct amount of tax. Okay, all right. Now who should actually file their tax returns? Everyone who has a source of income. And when I say a source of income and this is an ideal opportunity, we speak to persons who are self-employed. Self-employed means you take care of yourself, you are a vendor, you are a small business person, you are an entrepreneur whether online or you know you have your small business set up, you are an employee, you are a contractor, you have a source of income so you should file your tax returns. Okay, what is the usual statutory date for filing tax returns for companies and individuals? March 31st for individuals and individuals, like I said, speaks to self-employed persons and employees and companies three months after the end of their financial year. So it's different. So a company's financial year ends maybe September so they have to, they file a company returns December. But for those of us like you and me, employees and self-employed persons, it's, and you can look at it as this, it's the calendar year. So January to December, 12 months, three months after the end of the calendar year, March 31st we have to file our returns. Okay, now the funny thing is I know that there is a specific day every year but if a company or even an individual, let's say, misses that date, is there any advice you can give them in regards to what they should do? All right, we know we may have a problem for one thing on that. It could be because you can't get your supporting documents, you have a right to apply for an extension of time to file your returns at least a month or two weeks before. Not on March 31st, you come into Inland Revenue and apply for an extension of time. Now you have to remember that when you apply for the extension of time, it's only applicable to filing the return. Not applicable to if there was, if you may have a liability on filing that you have an extension to pay. No, you're applying for an extension of time to file your tax return. You put it in writing and you state the reasons why. And you must do so in advance of the stipulated deadline date. Okay, all right. Okay, that helps because I guess. It helps a lot of persons because sometimes the agency that you require to support in documents for one reason or another, they aren't able to give it to you within a specific time. So you have that leeway. It's there in the law when it comes to extension of times, you have the right to apply for. It is not a verbal thing. It is not somebody calling on the telephone and saying, you know, I can't do this. I don't have that. So I won't be able to know. It is documented by application and you get your response in writing from the department. Just to add to that, in the event or in the case where let's say someone just person one document, you can still bring in your return. So you know it was logged on time. You bring in your return and then later on you can drop in to come to the department and say that I missed out this document. I was waiting for this document. We will stamp it, attach your number and everything. And then we'll assign it to your return when we get to your return. So we have had people in the past say that they're not bringing their return. They're missing one document. And we advise them not to do that. You have all the other supporting documents. You can still bring in the return. Later on you can bring in the supporting document. But bring it as soon as possible because if by the time we're ready to assess it and it's not there then it won't, we won't allow it. You understand? So you know to put it in a nutshell, we really and truly as individuals, we have no reason why not. To file the returns on time. File the returns. Get your supporting documents. You have 90 days more or less from the beginning of the year to get all your supporting documents and to file the returns. Okay, brilliant. Now we've touched on documents. What kind of supporting documents are you usually asked for in regards to filing of taxes? The first thing is your income. You must get from your employer your income for the prior year. This year is 2017 you're filing. By now your employer should have given you what is called a TD5. So for government employees, it's a P11 for the private sector. It's a TD5. In the absence of that, the employer can on an official letterhead of the company put your total remuneration for the year. How much NIS was deducted from you. How much taxes were paid by you. Your NIC number, your tax account number if they know, and their employer number, stamp it, sign it, and you use that as your source of income. If you are self-employed, you have to have attached your income and expenditure for your business operations throughout the course of the year. You also need, if you have a child going to a relative, really, higher education is a relative who attends university and you are the one who are putting them through that. You need to get from the university a letter indicating that the individual was there full-time plus proof of expenditure paid. That could mean your tuition, your lodging, anything associated to that individual attending full-time university. Life insurance, medical insurance, the statements from the respective institutions, approved pension funds, retirement savings plans, the certificates from the institutions. The financial institutions I know are ready and willing with your mortgage interest statements, accredited unions' habits, your house insurance statements. If, perchance, you are one of the persons who are paying alimony under the need of a divorce or decree, you must have that information. How tax paid during the year, you must have your receipts. If you are given what is called a travel allowance, you use your vehicle to do company and business during the course of the year, you must have a tax, a completed travel form, which is available on our website and hard copies available from our department. The employee must have this filled out by themselves and their employee and stamped and provided to us. If you, during the course of the year, you are part of the Ministry of Agriculture's hobby farming certificate program, you get that certificate from the Ministry of Agriculture, you're allowed to claim that. If you, in your community, you come together and you provide your materials, your finance, your finance, your road that is monitored and administered by the Ministry of Infrastructure, you get the certificate and you can claim these things. So we have lots of allowances. And deductions, but we appeal to you to have the supporting documents. Now some individuals do not have medical insurance. You come with but don't include in all your bills, all your receipts for your medical. There is no limit to medical, but you must have the original medical bills for you to claim and you add it all up. Those of us who don't take loans for our mortgage on our home, don't have a loan for our home improvements or renovations. However, you expand it out of your own funds to do those things you provide us for upkeep and maintenance of your home, a detailed description of the work done that must be in your tax return for us to allow you the claim. So right now, this is the time, January, February, prior to March, this is the time for us to gather all the information that we need in order to file a correct and true tax return. Okay, brilliant. So obviously, what we hinted on there is there's many deductions that can actually be made. So it really is vital that everybody gets collected documents and make sure they get done. Just to add to what Lezion said, the typing. If you pay in type two, you need to get a deal of covenant. Which has to be for three years and you need your copy of that. We need the original again and we need the copy of your receipt for payment. As to the TD-5s, if again your employer doesn't have the original form for meal and revenue and they give it to you on your letterhead, other allowances like if they give you meal allowance or if they give you telephone allowance, all these things have to be stated on that form also. Okay, well thank you very much. But we're going to just take a short break right now and we're going to be back in a moment. Small household electrical appliances, when faulty, can give rise to big problems. If you have just purchased a small appliance from a store and you are concerned about the safety of the item, one appliance has been at home for some time subjected to wear and tear from regular usage. Have it tested by the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards. It is better to be safe than sorry. For more information, contact the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards at 456-0546 or email SLBS at candw.lc or visit the website at www.slbs.org.lc St. Lucia Bureau of Standards, making quality and standards our way of life. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I am Johnny B. Sett-Joseph. Now, as stated before, we are talking today about filing of taxes as we are in tax season again. Again, let me just reintroduce my guest, Ms. Lesley-Anne Modeste and Delia Jabatis-Terres, who are both from the Taxpayer Service Unit. Now, e-filing. That's something that has been talked about a lot. Now, but people are still kind of unaware of maybe how to go about filing their taxes online and such like. So, first of all, can you just tell us a little bit about what exactly is e-filing? Okay, e-filing is an online program where you become an e-user. You have a user name assigned to you. You log in and through that program, you can do everything you can do at the department. You'll be able to do it, apart from applying for a client's letter. But you'll be able to file. You'll be able to pay. You'll be able to browse in your account to see what's updated, what's not updated. And with e-filing, like I tell clients, there's a lot more security and assurance and records with the e-filing because everything you do is a time and a date recorded to it. Oh, okay. All right. So, that's one of the reasons that that method should be used. But are there any other methods that you think are very, you know, that are of advantage to any kind of taxpayer? Yes. March 41st, when we close at 4.40, that's it. With e-filing, you have, like I keep saying, you have until 11.59 on March 21st to file. So, you can do it. You can go home, have a shower, relax with your bottle of wine as your convenience, and you file your returns. And it's very, and e-filing is very user-friendly. A lot of people have problems in doing the calculations part and the system, the network, it just does that for you. All you do is just press one little button and all that is done for you. Okay. How would I go about, for instance, if I wanted to become an e-user? How would I go about actually becoming one? Okay. To become an e-user, you first have to go to the site. HTTPS colon forward slash forward slash e-filing that's E-F-I-L-I-N-G.govt.lc. The minute you log into that screen, you will see a screen saying it has username, password, login, and it has register user. If you're not a user at that point, you click on register user. When you do that, some fields will come up, which you have to fill out, basic information like your name, social security number, and so forth. But like I tell people, before we even start that process, we have to make sure that you have the updated browsers, which is Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, or yeah, I think that's it. Apple and Macs, we don't use those. It'll advise you if you have any of these, these won't be applicable. All right. Again, you need a scanner or like we said, iPhones now, we can use your iPhone because you need to have your ID scanned or your documents, all right. So upon registering, you have your, we want to see your picture ID, use your ID card or your driver's license or passport, not selfies, not pictures of your pets or your dogs. We've had those. Oh, gosh. So we need you to attach that. Well, you will see it on the application where you have attachment, send it over, we attach it, and then you click. After you request and make sure everything is okay, it takes eight working hours. Within eight working hours, you should get some response from taxi filing. We asked you to check, again, make sure you have a proper email account, Gmail. Well, we, we have a few issues with your hotmail, but I think it's working now. Okay. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, UK, CO, whatever it is, you try it out. When you click on that link, you will, it will take you automatically to your email. Basically, you get something in your email. Okay. All right. You click on the link. At that point, the administrator will approve you or reject you. Okay. Okay. That's cool. So, but is there anything really required? Well, you kind of touched on a lot of it. Make sure that you have your, some source of ID and such. Yes. But it's the same thing. Just make sure you have all your documents and whatever you have to put through one time. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. Now, how long after should an individual get a response in regards to when they register? Like I said, it takes eight working hours. After eight working hours, if you haven't received, again, tell people, check the inbox, check the spam or the junk, because I noticed that some people, they get the mail in the spam or the junk mail. So, always check. Within eight working hours, you don't receive a link from tax e-filing. You have to contact the department. Okay. All right. Okay. We know there are internet issues. Sometimes the internet runs slow and so, but we ask you to wait eight working hours. Okay. Something that I know people might be wondering, though, is can payments actually be done online? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. That's why I tell you, you don't have to come in. All right. After you, you, well, you're approved. You get your username and you use the password that you place in your application. It's not the password that we assign to you. All right. After you log in, you'll be able to file your returns. You'll be able to, like I said, make your payments. Everything can be done on that database. Okay. Brilliant. Now, if we don't, people who don't go the e-way, I know that, for instance, in recent years, there was a lot of different stations around. That'd be the case again this year. Yes. Helping people. Just in case people need some guidance that one-on-one kind of, can you tell us a little bit about that? We have, in our offices, we have offices throughout St. Lucia. So if you're in the south, you go to our Before Tax Service Center, in the Dye Building. If you're in Sufra, you go to our agent, sub-agency there. In castries, we are at the financial, we have a large and medium unit at the financial center third floor. You can go there for assistance, but that's specific to filing time. So much tax season, our large and medium unit is available if you don't have forms. And the forms are not only e. You have, we still have, because e is new. It is not new to us, but it's still relatively new to a lot of our clients. So you can still get the paper, return the blank points, or you go to our website if you're electronically inclined. And there is a form which you can download and input the information. It calculates it, print it, attach your supporting documents, and come in. You can also come to our main office, which is at the Heraldine Rock Building. During filing time, both officers are on our first and third floor. We render assistance there. And at our property tax valuation office, which is located in Sunny Acres. So much, it's all hands on deck for Inland Revenue staff. We are always available. You can call, you can come in, you can email customer service at ird.gov.lc and pose your questions. We're there for you, like our slogan says, we're there to serve. And so don't have a question. Don't have a doubt. Don't hesitate to call us and we're there to answer your questions. What we also want to tell our clients is, don't come to us with a blank form. Please put in your personal details in the front and page one and two of the tax returns. That is your business. We will guide you with everything else. But please sign the form. These are basic things that we can do at home if we have some challenge. We also have in place for persons who have incomplete records and that goes specifically to self-employed individuals. And they're not sure. During this month, we encourage those persons to come in and we can set up from our customer service front and taxi services unit. We set up audit interviews and you have the conversation with our auditors who will provide the guidance to you. So that next year, you really don't need us. It's easy for you to come in and do so. But we encourage persons to do this now. Don't wait last minute. Don't wait last minute to do so. It's filing time. Let's get it right. Let's work together to get it right. Okay. Now ladies, I know this might sound like impossible but we've actually run out of time. So thank you. Thank you so much for coming in. This is vital information for everybody, believe me. Even for someone like myself who tries to make sure she gets it done as well as possible. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for the tips and the guidance. And also thank everybody out there for tuning in and watching issues and answers. That's it for today however. Bye-bye for now.