Dear Editor,
The uproar over the "penny-pinching" withdrawal tax may say more about a quirk in our national psyche than Jamaicans may care to admit. The problem with Finance Minister Peter Phillips is not that he listens too much to his advisers, but that he doesn't listen enough to singer Ernie Smith.
Had he done more of the latter, he would have better understood that in a society where folks will happily "beat the gate" then buy out the bar, or scale the Stadium wall when the concert is free, to propose a tax that can neither be evaded nor avoided is a non-starter.
We just have to mash it down. I'm not buying the stated objections to the tiny amounts taxpayers would be called upon to pay on each withdrawal as the real reasons for the uproar. I believe the real, albeit unstated, objection is that the tax is seen as (a) new and different and (b) almost as certain as death. Of course, the PNP Government has only itself to blame.
Had it, as a priority in its first 100 days in office, effected the administrative/legislative changes to enforce and collect that "old" familiar property tax, it could have avoided this tax proposal and the public relations disaster. So wheel and come again, Peter. Level the playing field, Minister. Give us a sporting chance.
This withdrawal tax is "just not cricket". We are accustomed to the "old" familiar income, GCT, property, health, education, housing taxes. We can beat those. But this one ? Even Anancy would have been bowled first ball.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
The uproar over the "penny-pinching" withdrawal tax may say more about a quirk in our national psyche than Jamaicans may care to admit. The problem with Finance Minister Peter Phillips is not that he listens too much to his advisers, but that he doesn't listen enough to singer Ernie Smith.
Had he done more of the latter, he would have better understood that in a society where folks will happily "beat the gate" then buy out the bar, or scale the Stadium wall when the concert is free, to propose a tax that can neither be evaded nor avoided is a non-starter.
We just have to mash it down. I'm not buying the stated objections to the tiny amounts taxpayers would be called upon to pay on each withdrawal as the real reasons for the uproar. I believe the real, albeit unstated, objection is that the tax is seen as (a) new and different and (b) almost as certain as death. Of course, the PNP Government has only itself to blame.
Had it, as a priority in its first 100 days in office, effected the administrative/legislative changes to enforce and collect that "old" familiar property tax, it could have avoided this tax proposal and the public relations disaster. So wheel and come again, Peter. Level the playing field, Minister. Give us a sporting chance.
This withdrawal tax is "just not cricket". We are accustomed to the "old" familiar income, GCT, property, health, education, housing taxes. We can beat those. But this one ? Even Anancy would have been bowled first ball.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com