There are some mutterings by Ja's opposition leader that "the Government has butchered us with taxes."

Opposition Leader Andrew Holness yesterday summoned the Portia Simpson Miller administration to halt plans to impose the revised property tax, even as he launched a broadside against the Government for subjecting Jamaicans to what he characterised as unprecedented hardship.

How does this sentiment affect quiet protests/appeals of property tax payers, whose taxes are due by April 30th in order to avoid a 10 percent penalty.

Is there a consensus advice out there, if there is conjecture that property taxes may be reduced, to make partial payments since refunds & credits to "full payments" may be doubtful??

Gleaner Links:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130426/lead/lead1.html

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=36294


In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. (Benjamin Franklin)...Another difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time the legislature meets. (Robert Quillen)

In levying taxes and in shearing sheep it is well to stop when you get down to the skin.
Austin O'Malley

Video: Talking Property Taxes on Smile Jamaica (Tell mi sah...whoose smilin' now...the genuine hardship cases or the tax dodgers who, combined, owe $J6.4 billion (!) in property tax arrears?

www.televisionjamaica.com/Programmes/SmileJamaica.aspx/Videos/25288

So much agony/confusion about this approximately 160% increase in property taxes on the NLA's Valuations of properties...including so many of our fellow citizens trying to hold onto little parcels of raw, "wild" lands to pass onto their progeny, at some unforeseen future, having to come up with these sudden increases on top of out-of-sight light & water bills & the vagaries of service, the strains of all manners of insurance in uncertain times, medical costs, inflation (an increasingly worthless/wutless local dollar) and other drains...harder and harder to do good by doing "right".

We are way pass the skin when it comes to the taxes; we've cut the bones and are already digging the marrow!

Everyone has to pay taxes! but for crying out loud, an increase of 160% is madness. Does this Government have any idea what they are doing?. Does this math makes any sense to the have nots?... I am lost for more words.

Everyone get out and protest loudly, and if that doesn't work, tell them their fired. People always forget that out of many one people, one voice. Revolt and stop telling each other how bad it is and how you would change this and that. Tell your Government, loudly and forcefully if necessary. There is more of you than them, seems a pretty easy fight. Get on with it. What are you all afraid of, winning, seems that way to me. 1 people 1 voice 1 love.

The gov did the easy thing and doubled up on property owners already paying taxes, instead of finding the parcels of land for which no tax is being paid and doing something about it. There is a last straw that will break a camel's back!

The Jamaican Government is broke, and they are raising and and collecting taxes in any way they can to keep afloat. Everyone agrees the taxes are too high and unfair. Everyone knows that the Jamaican Government is not going to the trouble to try to collect taxes from everybody but is levying and collecting taxes from the "easiest targets."

With all that understood, I believe "New Earthling" is totally wrong about the impact any sort of protest or revolt will have, assuming people can even be organized to do this. You say it "seems a pretty easy fight." It is a miserably difficult fight, and it will not be won by protests in the streets.

Jamaica is not the only place with unfair taxes.

Because you suggest changing them is so easy, why not tell us how YOU were able to convince YOUR government to lower taxes by "protesting and revolting"? Perhaps your example--if you have one--will inspire Jamaicans.

Watch the IMF money, without a doubt there is greedy government hands ready to divert some of it into off shore accounts. feel so bad for you JAMAICA, we are all suffering from the corruption of greed with our governments and banks as well as the IMF, World Bank etc. My views can be very strong towards this injustice so will keep it simple, [edited by TB.Net]

I respect your opinion on my comment, thank you.
I stated that many voices with the same cause can make change happen. It has been proven many times "Martin Luther King JR, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela" those are big ones, not to say the cause for Jamaicans is a small one. I alone do not make change, it is many. There is protesting happening in Jamaica right now in order to bring attention to problems that need to be dealt with, St Thomas high school students demanding better security and a wall to be repaired that allowed a student to gain entry onto school grounds and stab a fellow student, where are the voices of their parents an elders. It may seem miserably difficult with out hope but great things have been done with just a little bit of hope and lots of courage. As not to taint this forum and have my comments edited by the webmaster I wont suggest ways on the how to protest as much as I would like to.
The government isn't broke, its a case of major mismanagement and corruption along with citizens that sit idle and allow it to happen year after year. Jamaicans have freedom of speech and choice, exercise it. With all do respect, I personally feel that better must come and it will have to be earned.1Love All

How is that 160% tax increase possible, wait IMF is in town along with World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, need to show them that 2 Billion US Dollars can be paid back in 4 years.

TB, Jamaica, I will apologize right now that my tax dollars here in Canada was given to those three organization "if I can call them that" to sink your country further in debt than it was before and will be for a long long long long time to come. Excuse me while I cry, its like watching the one you love die. No Joke. Love you TB

We have often heard threats from our Tax Administration Directorate, in charge of collecting revenues, that because of shortfalls in targeted tax collections, the "hammer" (stiff penalties) will drop on tax dodgers.

There does seem to be an attitude, wherever you may be in the world, that taxes are unfairly collected, distributed or corruptly set aside for elites, and calculated tax "avoidance" serves that sense of righteousness.

The questionable legitimacy of that sentiment has notably been expressed in the British Parliament as:
Every man is entitled if he can to order his affairs so as that the tax ... is less than it otherwise would be..." (Lord Tomlin, in a 1936 UK House of Lords case)

The symptoms of the "Greek Disease"...there in a "cradle of democracy", the debt crisis there threatening the downfall of an entire inter-national currency puts Greece's debt somewhere, after adjustments, in the range of 120% of its economic output. It is also estimated that more than 30% of Income Tax goes uncollected...for decades on end.

We have heard Greek citizens openly say: "We will start paying our "fair share" of taxes, when the government starts actually governing...period."

It wasn't until the government stated seizing privately luxury yachts, licensed for exempted professional use to escape taxes, that the collectors started getting folk's attention.
All sorts of other ruses, such as employers paying their workers "under the table", coupled with an inefficient and, at times, corrupt-able bureaucracy, & grandiose spending helped starve the revenue stream.

Does this mean that making "examples" of prominent tax evaders, as the gazetting (media postings), recommended by some local policy makers, would be deterrents? Is a tax audit ever a threat in this country, where attorneys and chartered accountants exercise such sway on their client's behalf?

In the singular example of the Greek yacht seizures, many owners rushed to their tax directorates to change the ownership status and apply the proper license, paying-up on the "right" tax to get their stuff off-the-hook.

Gleaner Link:Tax Evasion, Avoidance or Mitigation? That is the Question
http://m.jamaicaobserver.com/mobile/business/Tax-Evasion--avoidance-or-mitigatio n--That-is-the-question_12438935

Z, would like to elect you as new prime minister.

If our tax dollars were put to good use ,then you would\ve seen the result and you could understand but its the same old same,well maybe it will keep the JEEP running .

Where Will The Taxes Come From?

There is a story in the gospel of Matthew wherein the disciples wanted to ascertain whether they ought to pay taxes (17:24-27).
Jesus told the disciples that the King does not tax his children and, therefore, the disciples were freed from tax obligations because of his relationship to them. However, the disciples have a responsibility to serve the community through the paying of taxes.
Jesus told Peter to go and catch a fish and he will find money in the mouth of the fish to pay the taxes. This Peter did. However, since such miracles have ceased, we now have to determine where the taxes will come from.

It is unrealistic to expect to garner more taxes, in a declining economy, from ordinary Jamaicans. The Government must cut expenditures or get the taxes from outside, such as a visa tax.
(Rev Devon Dick, PhD: Pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew)

Gleaner Link:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130509/cleisure/cleisure2.html

No Joking...The Sufferer's Lament

Cartoon:
www.jamaicaobserver.com/tools/cartoons/ed-cartoon-may-09-2013

What wickedness.