The Executive Coun­cil recently received confir­mation from State Secretary for Kingdom Relations and Digitisation Alexandra van Huffelen that the Caribbean Netherlands Tax Office has granted a postponement to Saba residents for filing their income tax return until July 17.

In addition, the period for companies to submit their collective wage statement has been extended to Sep­tember 1.

The extension for both tax submissions was granted in response to several bottle­necks that residents and companies encountered with the Tax Office’s digital ser­vices.

The bottlenecks are mainly related to the two-factor au­thentication 2FA when log­ging into the portal MijnCN. 2FA is a necessary, further development in e-govern­ment to keep the systems secure, the state secretary explained. A few challenges have arisen in the transition to 2FA, which have been rec­ognised by the Tax Office. Subsequently, it was decided to take actions in response to these issues. A generic post­ponement of income tax re­turn filing was granted to res­idents from May 15 until July 17. Due to similar problems with the submission of the collective wage statement by companies, that period was extended to September 1.

The lax Office said it is looking into the issues and is working on appropriate mea­sures, which will be shared with the public. People can receive support at the Tax Of­fice in filing their tax return. State Secretary Van Huffel­en confirmed that the Min­istry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations is moni­toring the further handling of this issue, and will take into account the lessons learned for the introduction of the digital identification DigiD in 2025, which will replace MijnCN.

The tax issues were brought up in a meeting of the private sector with the state secre­tary during her visit to Saba on April 19.

The Daily Herald.