Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) has collected $2 billion under their Special Arrears Settlement Programme (SASP), since its launch in January.

The programme is specially designed to waive/remit interest, penalty and surcharge (IPS) accrued, once outstanding principal taxes are paid by March 31.

Keeble Downie, project lead and general manager at the Montego Bay Revenue Service Centre, explained that, based on their assessment, TAJ will be targeting 150,000 persons under the SASP.

“This programme is targeting non-government active taxpayers… we’re not covering government agencies. When we looked at the data… when we look at those who have outstanding principal interest… we see that over 150,000 persons can take advantage of this (SASP),” Downie said at a JIS Think Tank last Friday (February 7).

TAJ indicated that, so far, their compliance officers have reached out to approximately 2,500 taxpayers who are eligible for the programme and they can credit the J$2 billion collected to the SASP. To facilitate the influx of customers who wish to access tax relief, the TAJ has also made special arrangements at its offices islandwide.

“Normally our compliance officers are the officers who deal with amounts outstanding and arrears. We have changed our programme for this last quarter to just accommodate this Special Arrears Settlement Programme being dealt with,” Dave Jeffery, TAJ deputy commissioner general for operations, said.

“All the programmes that our whole cadre of compliance officers would normally do, we have put those programmes in abeyance to allow for them to concentrate especially on this,” he added.

The TAJ deputy commissioner pointed out that an all-hands-on-deck approach is being taken to the programme.

“Our compliance officers, our taxpayer education officers, Customer Care Centre officers will be making and receiving calls, our auditors… just about all our team members will be on board with this,” Jeffery said.

The programme is focused on outstanding principal tax up to the year of assessment (2024), and period of assessment (2025).

This means taxpayers will be required to be current with their filing obligations, inclusive of income tax returns and payments, due March 17.