By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterREADING ENTHUSIASTS will avoid the blow of the tax axe as Government has backed down from the imposition of General Consumption Tax (GCT) on books and reading materials.
Speaking yesterday during the House Parliamentary Committee on Tax Measures, Dr. Omar Davies, the Minister of Finance and Planning, said the decision was made by Cabinet after much deliberation.
"Cabinet, led by the Prime Minister, came to the conclusion that, despite the cost, we are going to reverse the original position and there will be zero rating for all books and reading materials," the Minister told the committee.
He said that during the deliberations, the Government was forced to consider a number of issues, such as the inequity involved in charging duty on over-the-counter reading material, but not on material delivered from abroad by mail.
The Gleaner reported recently that the Government decided to remove the new duty on imported reading material costing under US$20. The removal of this duty, the Finance Minister said yesterday, came after a major pile-up of mail occurred at post offices across the island as people refused to pay the tax.
Members of the Book Industry Association of Jamaica told the committee, in May, that GCT was a tax on literacy that would end up costing the society more than the amount it was meant to pull into the treasury.
