WE ARE as frustrated as the Prime Minister that the police and the tax authorities are not using the legislative tools at their disposal to investigate and deal with persons who are unable to explain the source of their wealth and their failure to make proper income tax returns. And we are astonished that, either because of his management style or because of a thick palimpsest of bureaucracy which encrusts the machinery of government, even a Prime Minister can be stonewalled by the authorities and left impotent to use his authority to get the job done.
The tax authorities claim that they cannot go into action until the police alert them as to whose unexplained conspicuous consumption should be investigated, and in any case it is probable that the police themselves lack the skills and training to investigate any large-scale tax evasion initiative. The Commissioner of Income Tax, Mr. Clive Nicholas, rather coyly refuses to comment on income tax matters. It is true that confidentiality should be an important factor in any income tax regime but when tax delinquents are brought before the courts the protection of confidentiality ends.
What the PM and the public want to know is why, under these circumstances, we have not seen dozens of trials resulting in criminals being imprisoned for tax evasion. When Chicago was the crime capital of America and when no evidence could be marshalled to convict Al Capone for murder he was jailed for not paying income tax.
Existing tax legislation in Jamaica gives the authorities a big advantage by shifting the burden of proof from the State to the citizen. The Income Tax Commissioner can assess someone for suspected income and it is up to that person, by producing books of account, to show that the amount claimed is not due or the proper tax has been paid. How many "dons" and narco-traffickers keep such records, we wonder, and why haven't more of them been indicted and convicted? This should not be seen as an exercise to collect revenue, as important as that is, but it should be a priority for getting criminals off the streets.
To build tax evasion cases that will stand up in court requires the skills of forensic auditors. It may be necessary to recruit them from abroad to strengthen the Police Fraud Squad, the investigative unit of the Ministry of Finance and the office of the Commissioner of Income Tax itself. The Prime Minister must find a way to break through the confusion and inertia which now exists and, behind the scenes, whip his troops into action.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
