AS an economist who clearly understands the very testing economic situation facing the country, I cannot argue against the Government searching for ways to increase its revenues, nor do I question the right of Caesar to collect taxes.

However, if my memory of my Bible readings is intact, Mary and Jacob, having gone to Jerusalem to pay their taxes, could not find space in any of the inns to rent and thus had to rent a stable, indicating that it was a time of economic growth. Equally, I cannot recall reading that there was famine and economic dislocation during the life of Jesus when Israel was under Roman rule. The Apostle Paul was glad to boast of his Roman citizenship. In other words, a government’s tax policy cannot and should never be seen as an island in the sea.

Public sector employees, who are the owners of the majority of the housing units in the municipality of Portmore, have seen a continuous decline in their real wages over the last seven years, even as the prices of the goods and services which they consume have increased, thus reducing real per capita consumption in that municipality. To seek to implement a tax policy at this time which would give the State the right to sell an individual’s property because of failure to pay his or her property tax is, from the perspective of the vast majority of the household owners in the municipality of Portmore, unjust and insensitive; moreso because it is their employer who is seeking to exercise the right of sale over the employees’ property. It is the very same employer’s failure to pay a salary which would allow full and timely payment of his taxes.

From the perspective of the property owners of northern Manchester, the Government of Jamaica is demanding payment for services it has not rendered. The road in Halifax is in urgent need of repair, garbage in Mile Gully is not collected on a regular basis, and the entire road from Mile Gully to Christiana is littered with garbage. In addition, both RADA and the JAS, hence the Ministry of Agriculture, has failed by all standard measure to be of any real source of assistance to the farmers who would like to increase their earnings per acre cultivated without filling the land with fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides, weedicides, slug and ants bait, and the world of dangerous chemicals.

There must be a measureable relationship between the services provided by the State and the taxes it seeks to collect. From the perspective of property owners in the city of Kingston, not only is this new proposed law anti-urban renewal, but it seeks to complete the forced transfer of property which took place between 1976 and 1984. A person who has lost access or usage of his or her property because of the failure of the State to protect his or her property interests as a citizen and as a landowner should not be forced to pay property taxes to that State. The Armies of The Roman Empire went to war not only to protect the interests of the State, but to protect the rights of its citizens as well.

Equally so, the government tax policy, is an additional disincentive to those who seek to enter the city of Kingston to contribute to its renewal. Is extortion not already a real existing disincentive to investment in the city? Why add to it? Are robberies not a real disincentive to investment in the city? Why add to it? It is an economic crime if ever there were such a thing.

The position and real concern of the Government of Jamaica is understood, but the Government of Jamaica must also understand the real concerns of all stakeholders before passing into law any proposal to take unto itself the right to sell property for tax collection.

BasilAksumite@gmail.com