PRIVATE Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) president Chris Zacca will meet today with Finance Minister Audley Shaw to hear why the minister last week lashed out at the sector, sending jitters among businesses about Government’s stance.

Zacca was among nearly 600 members of the finance and business sector who were dumbstruck by Shaw’s broadside against businesses not paying their taxes and for what he termed Jamaica’s “tax compliance crisis”.

Addressing the PSOJ’s annual Economic Forum at the Bank of Jamaica in downtown Kingston, and in front of the visiting president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Luis Alberto Moreno, Shaw charged: “Sixty-eight per cent of the arrears of which we speak are corporate income tax arrears, and the truth is that right now we have a situation where it is a very, very small, it’s like one per cent of Jamaica paying 75 per cent of corporate taxes, so we have a lot of work to do.”

The finance minister also suggested there was collusion between the private sector and corrupt customs officers to deprive the treasury of taxes, and he welcomed new tax commissioner, Danville Walker, in the fight against this practice.

“Customs has been a hotbed of corruption and Mr PSOJ president, I am going to be blunt, it is a hotbed of corruption because private sector importers themselves are participating along with customs officers and customs brokers in robbing the treasury of vitally needed money to run the country,” said the finance minister.

Commenting on today’s meeting with Shaw, Zacca said yesterday that businesses were taken aback by the minister’s seeming “anti-private sector” stance which came as a big surprise, in view of the ongoing private sector-government partnership.

“We have always maintained strong support for administrative reform and have consistently called upon everyone to pay their taxes,” said Zacca. “But we have also suggested to the Government that it was necessary to lower taxes at all levels, as a means of getting greater compliance.”

The PSOJ president said his organisation had been working with the Government to align their views on how to solve the tax compliance problem in a context in which tax levels were seen as onerous. “With lower taxes you can get 40 per cent more compliance and we want a practical way out of this problem,” said Zacca.

He said Shaw’s comments were counter-productive, bordering on the unfriendly and could cause some investors to wonder whether the Government was backtracking on its pledge to be business friendly.

He also noted that the minister’s views were one-sided as he failed to address the large number of state agencies which were not paying their taxes and statutory deductions.

“I was really surprised at the tone of his comments,” Zacca admitted.