Letter of the Day | Emancipate workers from oppressive taxes
Published:Tuesday | August 1, 2023 | 12:05 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
During the 2023-24 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives on March 7, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Nigel Clarke announced that “no new taxes will be introduced to finance the Government’s $1-trillion Budget for the upcoming fiscal year” (Jamaica Information Service, March 8, 2022).
Yet, the Government is currently seeking tax revenues from Jamaicans who work within the airline industry. Not just the traditional PAYE, but taxing free travel benefits that both employees and their families once enjoyed. If a Jamaican employee in the airline industry provides a ‘buddy pass’ to fly within the United States, the Jamaican Government’s imputed taxes, converted from the US dollar by an ever-sliding Jamaican rate of exchange, can reap over a hundred thousand Jamaican dollars, thus affecting poor staff morale and an unwillingness to work in Jamaica.
Clearly, Minister Clarke’s boast that 2023-24 represents the sixth consecutive fiscal year in which “we have not introduced any new taxes for the people of Jamaica”, and the eighth year “where we have had no new net taxes”, is nothing but misleading Parliament, and ultimately, the people of Jamaica, since the said Government is busy attacking benefits of employees within the private sector.
This is the same Government, who, in responding to the citizens’ quest to stop bauxite mining in some area in St Ann and Trelawny, had their lawyers telling the appeal court that “cutting welfare spending or imposing $6 billion in taxes are the main options facing Jamaicans if two bauxite companies are not allowed to mine parts of St Ann and Trelawny” ( The Gleaner, March 2023).
What, then, is the true situation that surrounds the deduction of taxes, as the people are fooled by the Government’s left hand “giving up $160 million in General Consumption Tax based on policy changes to facilitate the importation of horses, sheep, pigs and goats by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries over the next five years”, while it’s right hand attacks and reaps more taxes from the free benefits of hard-working Jamaicans in the travel industry?
Who will emancipate the workers from the Government’s oppressive tax policies?
DUDLEY MCLEAN II
Mandeville, Manchester