THE EDITOR, Sir:
ONCE AGAIN the unfairness of our tax system is quite evident, as outlined in the front page article of The Gleaner on Friday, Feb-ruary 13, 2004, titled 'Small land-owners to face brunt of tax hike'.
As one reads the article one finds again that it is the persons who can least afford it are the ones paying and are the ones again being punished. The category of persons who have the largest parcels of land in terms of value are not being asked to pay any increases.
Let's look at the following scenario. The persons who are small landowners are mostly those persons who fall into the working class category, that is, those persons who work 40 hours per week normal time.
It is these same individuals who have over 27 1/2 per cent of their salary deducted before they even get their pay cheques, it is these same persons who are affected the most by every tax package ever announced by our government. It is these same persons whose loan to cover mortgage cannot have the interest on their mortgage tax deductible, to reduce their income tax liability.
Now let's look at the other side. The category of large landowners are those among us who most likely are running their own businesses and in most cases are profitable.
These persons are asked to file income tax returns once per year and here is where all the tax accountants ensure that the least amount of tax that can be lawfully paid over is handed over to the government. Among that group, there are those who pay over no statutory deductions (even though they collect from their employees), no GCT (again collected from us), and where possible try to avoid custom import duties.
This group through legitimate accounting rules, also have the advantage of deducting all interest expenses related to the business, before tax is applied, thus reducing their income tax liability.
As one prominent person of our society once said, it is the man who plays by the rules who gets shafted.
I am, etc.,
JOHN WILLIAMS
jotex9@hotmail.com
PO Box 218
Kingston 2
Via Go-Jamaica
