Minister turns to forensic science to capture tax evaders
Published:Saturday | October 1, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Edmond Campbell, Senior Staff Reporter
VOWING TO capture persons who operate multibillion-dollar businesses but avoid the tax net, Finance Minister Audley Shaw said the Government was working feverishly to introduce forensic science to ferret out tax evaders.
"The commissioner general of Tax Administration has to turn to forensic science to determine the persons who are escaping the payment of general consumption tax (GCT), even though they are operating businesses, which turn over hundreds of million, even billions, of dollars," Shaw told business interests and customs officials who attended a seminar hosted by Jamaica Customs.
At the same time, a study completed by a technical team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be used as a benchmark in expediting the reform of tax administration to capture billions of dollars in revenue, which now escapes the tax net.
"It is a horrendous report that shows the magnitude of the abuse that is taking place in Jamaica today in terms of robbing the public treasury of revenue, and I resolve to deal with it," Shaw declared.
Suspicion confirmed
He said the findings of the IMF mission, which were handed over to him by the technical team on Thursday, had confirmed his suspicions about the level of tax evasion and avoidance in Jamaica.
"If I was able to capture all of that money, I would not have a fiscal-deficit problem in Jamaica today, I wouldn't have a fiscal- balance problem to have to discuss with the IMF under the standby agreement, and we would have adequate resources to fix the roads in this country," Shaw told participants at the seminar at the Wyndham Hotel in New Kingston.
Shaw promised to make the findings of the report public, but he did not give a date for releasing the information.
"When we collect that incremental money, I will return some of it in the form of reduced rates. That is my commitment and that is my promise," the finance minister pledged.
Turning to "persistent importers" who did not show up on the GCT, personal income tax or corporate income tax radar, Shaw said until they complied with the country's tax laws, they would be subject to "an additional upliftment tax at the ports".
Shaw said he had instructed Commissioner of Customs Danville Walker to put systems in place for the imposition of the tax.