Tax Dept. unveils computerised TD4 form
It’s one of the last remaining vestiges of the official past but now the venerable TD4 form used for filing income tax for over thirty years, may be on its way out. The form has been in existence since 1971 when the Pay As You Earn system was introduced. But those were the days of typewriters and with computers now taking over as the tool of choice in most businesses, the income Tax Department is trying to make filing returns less hassling. A new computerised TD4 Form is being introduced and today, officials met with employers in Belize City to explain how the new system will work. According to Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax Marilyn Ordonez, it is basically the same form, but the click of a mouse will make it easier to complete.
Marilyn Ordonez, Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax
?The employer only has to capture, enter the employees data in one copy of that form and the other five copies are immediately replicated, which would ease the burden of having to use carbon papers and of course that form, it creates a record for them. So they can keep that record of their employees? information.?
Patrick Jones
?But this, it doesn?t only make it easy for the employer. It makes it easy for the employees as well.?
Marilyn Ordonez
?Yes because the employees will have information, they would get their TD4, a copy of their yearly income reported as usual for their information. They can file a return if they have to, to the Income Tax Department for a refund of if the have a balance or the can retain their copy a record of their total earnings for that year.?
?The public service will be using the new form in Forms Doc. And that is why the Commissioner thought it was a good idea to share it with the private sector, see if they would like to use it as well, since it?s easy. It?s user friendly and even an employer who is not computer literate can use it because the instruction is very clear.?
?It may be the end, but there are some employers who may not want to use it, who don?t have a computer and of course then we would have to have these forms available. But we are still looking at if we do phase it out, then the employer would then send us that information and then we perhaps would have to capture that information. But we are looking to the future of perhaps moving to where we don?t have to use a lot of paper.?
Ordonez says the forms will be available to employers by the end of the month and other than the computerization of the system, everything else remains the same, including the filing deadline of February twenty-eighth.
