Call for property tax amnesty

Mark Titus, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:Business leaders in western Jamaica are calling for an amnesty on property taxes, arguing that efforts must be made to ensure compliance, rather than putting additional burden on those who obey the law.

"The chamber feels that this exorbitant increase will only serve to further reduce the compliance rate. So we are calling on the Government to immediately rethink this new levy and, instead, offer property owners a six-month amnesty in which to pay up," Davon Crump, president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Western Focus.

"We support any government initiative to increase revenues as long as they are not draconian in nature," Crump added. "The Government must, therefore, put checks and balances in place to promote and ensure compliance."

The property-tax hike came into effect on April 1 and forms part of a revenue package that was tabled in the House of Representatives last month by Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips to yield $16.4 billion for this fiscal year.

The new tax regime will see a flat rate of $1,000 for the first $100,000 of unimproved value - 1.5 per cent up to $1-million value, and 2 per cent for properties valued beyond the $1-million mark - and is expected to raise some $3.4 billion in revenue.

But land developer Mark Kerr Jarrett is of the view that more must be done by the Government to collect outstanding taxes.

"There must be a greater effort in bringing everyone into compliance," Kerr Jarrett said. "It is not fair to those who are compliant because those who are compliant are now being penalised without any serious effort to pursue the tax dodgers. It comes down to a 160 per cent increase, and this will significantly affect cost in real estate, and farmers will be affected."

According to data from the Ministry of Finance and Planning, property tax owed over the last six years stood at almost $7 billion at the start of the year, almost twice the amount the State is attempting to collect.