THE EDITOR, Sir:MR. CLIVE Nicholas, the Director-General of the Tax Administration Directorate in the Ministry of Finance addressed the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis Club of West St. Andrew recently and updated the large gathering about the upgrade of the tax administration system.
The informative presentation was followed by a lively question and answer period that went over the scheduled time for the meeting to end.
Many persons including myself thought that this tax administration programme was about extracting more taxes out of the overburdened taxpayers; however after his presentation it became apparent that it was more about efficient and equitable tax collection.
The following points were highlighted:
a) The upgrading of the physical plants and installation of new equipment to drastically reduce the time for payment of tax.
b) The introduction of computer systems that tax payment at any tax office will be immediately entered into the database. This will allow for current tax status on all taxpayers.
c) Programmes introduced (e.g. Tax Compliance Certificates) which allows for the widening of the tax net especially among self-employed persons. This along with targeting of self-employed persons to pay their fair share of tax has allowed the per cent of total tax revenue, collected from PAYE persons to decrease from 55 per cent to 45 per cent, although the total tax revenue has increased significantly.
d) The facility being put in place, where taxpayers who are owned by government departments and are unable to meet their tax obligation on a timely basis, because of this, can apply to the Ministry of Finance for a waiver of the penalties that have accrued.
e) The centralisation of the different tax groups for greater efficiency.
For example, Income Tax and GCT departments would not have to audit the same organisation separately for the same period.
f) The change of the Income Tax forms to make filing of annual returns easier.
The government should have a public education campaign about these and other tax measures that are being implemented to make the system equitable and efficient to sensitise the taxpayers so they could become more 'tax-paying friendly'.
However for this to happen the Government must now find the resources for the Contractor-General, the Auditor-General, Contracts Committee Offices and all other departments that monitor government's spending to become more efficient, just like the tax collection office, so that the money collected will be properly spent.
I am, etc.,
AINSWORTH DICK
Kingston 5
