The Government has rejected claims that it is using the tax authorities to target persons who have put themselves forward to represent the People’s National Party (PNP) in the next general election.
Minister with responsibility for information, Arthur Williams, says while it might be true that these PNP candidates have been subject to several tax audits, there is no political connection.
“They are not being targeted because they are politicians. Indeed, the tax department would not know that John Brown is a politician,” declared Williams at the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing.
Williams was responding to claims made on Tuesday by some of the new candidates entering representational politics on the PNP’s ticket.
“There is a new slew of PNP representatives coming from the business sector and I don’t know that one of us has not been the victim of numerous tax audits,” Leonard Green, the party’s standard-bearer in Western St Thomas, told a Gleaner Editors’ Forum.
“I have gone through seven tax audits already since July 2010 and I am telling you it is not easy … . And I have to say these things because I know as we speak right now, these are some of the methods to make sure that I don’t even reach nomination day,” added Green.
But Williams told the post-Cabinet media briefing that the increase in audits by the tax department was part of a national compliance plan designed to target tax dodgers who are self-employed.
Planned months ago
Williams noted that the tax department had announced details of the plan months ago.
“That plan also indicated that within the broad category of self-employed persons, there were three professional categories that would be targeted – attorneys-at-law, doctors and accountants,” added Williams.
He noted that the PNP candidates who have complained, including Dr Winston Green who will run in South East St Mary, are all self-employed professionals in the targeted group.
“Whether you are a JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) doctor, a PNP doctor or a NDM (National Democratic Movement) doctor, you are a doctor and you would be in the targeted group. The same would apply for accountants, attorneys and other self-employed persons,” said Williams.
Source-Jamaica Gleaner
