Politics
Barbados opposition leader, Mia Mottley, says more hardship ahead as new taxes announced
But Mottley said that the government was introducing as much as BDS$100 million in additional taxes on the population. She said the new taxes would force some people to put down their cars and push owners of enterprises who rely on their vehicles to transport commodities, to the brink of insolvency.
“The government has runaway expenditure, but worse, an implosion of revenue, our revenue has collapsed. And as a result of the revenue collapsing, expenditure still up in the vicinity of BDS$3.8-$3.9 billion, the financing of government deficit, has become the most critical problem facing this country, so that you move now from unsustainable fiscal deficit to a financing problem, that by reason of the choice or manner of financing, short-term financing through treasury bills by the Central Bank printing money, the reserves have been put under pressure..
“What is of more concern is that if you could not achieve BDS$120 million adjustment in seven months announced in the budget in August; BDS$88 million in expenditure cuts, and BDS$36 million in revenue, how, pray tell, are we going to achieve a BDS$510 million adjustment in 12 months?” she asked.
Mottey told legislators that the BDS$120 million adjustment meant that banks and other financial institutions, which would now be subjected to increase taxes on their assets, will pass them on to consumers. “I could paint it, Sir, for every person who is now paying the consolidation or stabilization tax since September 1 and whose disposable income continues to contract and who wonder ‘how much more can you take out of me, how much more can you tax out of me?” Mottley contended.
She also went on to say, “And for those who feared that question, if they listened to the debate this morning would hear that the Government did not believe it had reached its limit of taxation; more taxes coming. “More taxes coming on every single consumer because when you tax and increase the excise tax on gasoline, you effectively tax the entire economy, every household, every enterprise…,” she added.
Source: Caribbean360
