I read about the Jamaican pubic crying out for the government to make a real effort to solve the crime problem and corporate Jamaica is doing the same thing.
What I don't hear however is the affirmations to play their own roles in making this a reality. Governments need money to pay for policing and that money usually comes from tax revenue. Audley Shaw once again pointed out some disturbing facts at the recent economic forum.
Jamaican people need to:
(1) Pay their taxes - Cheating the government of the money it needs and then complaining about poor services and policing is hypocritical. Less than 250,000 people in Jamaica pay income taxes, with more than 220,000 of those being on the PAYE system, meaning that they pay taxes BEFORE they get their paycheck.
(2) Supporting the police by providing information - The "informa fi dead" culture is rampant and continues to be promoted. Nobody whose family member has been a victim would ever support such a stupid notion.
Corporate Jamaica needs to:
(1) Pay their taxes - "Corporate income tax accounts for 68 per cent of the arrears" and "One per cent of the firms account for 75 per cent of income tax". That makes no sense whatsoever. Corporate Jamaica needs to pay up because that is the money that trains the police, hires new officers for an understaffed force and allows upgrades to increase the efficiency of investigations.
Add to that the fact that these very same companies are calling for a tax rate reduction when they don't even pay their taxes anyway!
(2) Reduce the interest rates collected on national debt - The largest holders of Jamaica's national debt are Jamaican companies. Is the almighty dollar and the pursuit of profit more important than facilitating a a positive business environment? Lowering the interest rate by 1% saves J$5 Billion, money that can also go towards policing efforts.
There is a lot of blame to go around for the growing crisis and while the Government deserves much of it, the people of Jamaica and Corporate Jamaica must share some of the blame.
Monday, June 9, 2008
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2 comments:
One of the main reasons why people don't pay their taxes is that they feel that many/most people (who have a choice) don't.
Another reason, for not paying taxes, is that some government officials behave as if tax money is their own personal money. Most people don't have confidence that their taxes are well spent, and certainly don't feel that they are involved in the decisions to spend taxes.
I have always wondered why governments in Jamaica don't go after tax evaders more firmly. Why is the Government "begging" people to pay their taxes, as if they are asking for a favour.
I suspect that the reason governments don't go after tax evaders (in a serious way) is that there are many people in those governments (and their friends) who are also guilty of tax evasion.
We really need to stamp out government corruption before we can hope to see serious efforts to collect taxes, because it is difficult to report and pay taxes on incomes derived from corrupt sources. People are going to start asking questions about where the money came from.
I have reached the point that I do not share your optimism.
Corruption in Jamaica is rampant so the almighty dollar takes priority over everything else.
Everybody wants to gouge the other person, so to pay the taxes owed will never be on the "must do" list. However, they will complain when garbage don't get collected or crime runs rampant.
Jamaica needs divine intervention.
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