My tax plea to Mama

By George Davis

Mama P, by the time you read this (and contrary to what some snigger and say, I know you read the papers), you would've already made your contribution to the 2014-2015 Budget Debate.

Given that you are under no illusions about where your strengths lie and the fact that it wasn't you who conceptualised and announced it, I suspect you may very well allow the taxman, Dr Peter Phillips, to correct the error of the bank withdrawal levy when he closes the debate later today.

Mama P, that's what I want to talk to you about. The taxman. Everything I do in this country, the taxman puts his hand in my pocket and purloins a share of the revenue that I alone have worked for. Now don't get me wrong, Mama. I have absolute respect for the rule of law. And under law, I must pay taxes.

It's just that I get angry when I see the sum the taxman captures automatically from my monthly salary, inclusive of takings from certain allowances that really ought to be tax free. My blood boils when, after taking more than 30 per cent of my income, the taxman insists that any 'roast' I do on the side must also be the subject of taxation.

Mama, I pay income tax, general consumption tax on food, a special consumption tax on fuel for my car, pay traffic tickets (ostensibly a tax) for fatuous offences, and, under circumstances designed only to bring revenue to the taxman's purse, pay taxes on my mobile phone calls, water and light bills, bill from Flow for landline, cable and Internet, and taxes on the few drinks I can barely afford to buy only once per month at Tracks & Records.

IS IT FAIR?

So after all that and working 11-hour days, from which the taxman gets his sizeable cut of revenue, do you really think it fair that when I haul my tired body and leave my family to go hustle a little extra on Saturday afternoons, all public holidays except Christmas and Good Friday, and some Sundays, that the taxman should get a cut of that as well?

Tell me the truth, Mama! Do you really interpret that as fair expectation from the taxman given that the skills I peddle were paid for by loans borrowed by me and repaid by me?

Mama, it doesn't happen to you because, thankfully, you are past poverty, even though you know the condition quite well.

But, Mama, do you know what it is to have garbage in your little apartment for three weeks, with maggots forming at the bottom of the bin? Do you know what it is to come home bone tired from effectively slaving for the taxman and then 'catch yuh fraid' on your avenue because the street light has stopped working because of non-payment of bills to the JPS by the local government ministry?

Do you know what it is to wake up in April and have no water in the tap because NWC doesn't have enough funding for supply improvements? Do you understand how enraged people become in these circumstances, given how often the taxman is in their pockets taking money, allegedly to spend in these areas?

high public debt

Mama, do you realise that despite how much taxpayers have paid to the treasury, the taxman and his predecessors have run up such a high public debt that between 1999 and 2012, it averaged a whopping 118 per cent of GDP?

Mama, tell me the truth: What is the Jamaican taxpayer paying for now, and what have we been paying for since Independence?

It's not paying I have a problem with. It's the relentless pickpocketing of the taxman that gets my goat. Especially because the services I should expect in return for my taxes are, at best, delivered shabbily.

Mama, were it not for GCT, most Jamaicans would pay no taxes. Yet, it's they who demand and expect the world in return. I pay a large sum and am only asking for a fair shake from yours or any government. If you, as powerful as you are, cannot help me, maybe I will need to ask Gordon Robinson if he has any links at the Canadian High Commission.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.