After being given the assurance in the heights of campaigning that the Jamaica Labour Party’s income tax break would be funded without additional taxes, who would have thought that the tax “giveback” would wind up being the three-card trick that many of us knew that it would be from day one — $1.5 million plus tax, plus tax?

This current Administration has so far presented two budgets with two massive tax packages that impact not only those who have got $18,000 richer, but every single citizen of this country. Fuel costs have gone up, electricity costs have gone up, food costs have gone up, and by next year this time the dead too will be rising up.

To soften its burden on the poorest among us, the Government has announced its $33 per day increase to Programme for Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) beneficiaries, as though that is something to write home about when some of the most vulnerable in our society still cannot access the programme, and those who do have access were slapped with myriad increases that this Government believes are necessary to fund its tax package to a minute and wealthier subsection of the population.

At a time when the Government should be seeking to guarantee health care for all, it has slapped on a tax to group health insurance premiums in what is an unprecedented move. With our public health system already overburdened, grappling for life, and forcing its workers to make blood out of stone, the Government should not be seeking to drive away Jamaicans from private health care to land them right back into the overburdened public system which needs fixing and will take some time to be fixed.

To make matters worse, this Government has consistently used technicalities to prove itself intelligent, and the populace fools. It believes that we are stupid enough to run with this notion that the individual organisations responsible for undertaking group health insurance will absorb the additional cost that the tax will subtract from their profits. With preliminary calculations showing that premiums will cost some companies tens of millions of dollars, somebody is bound to pay for that loss and, sadly, it will be the already overtaxed consumers.

The Government has been raiding institutions all over and slapping taxes onto everything that comes to mind to ensure that it funds its poorly thought-out plan which should have cost some $12 billion. I believe we are closer to $30 billion now.

The National Housing Trust (NHT) has suddenly become a financial institution, which, again, on technicalities could be considered to be true, but this is the same party that took the previous Government to task over similar use of NHT funds in previous years.

When we thought the lies and trickery were over, Finance Minister Audley Shaw and his team presented us with a justification for the callous increases in property taxes. Having been quoted in a newspaper article stating the possibilities of increases to fund the ‘$1.5 million tax plan’, Shaw came out recently, not to backtrack on those tax increases, but to justify why Jamaicans had to face this one-off increase which he and his Administration now denies to be a part of the measures to fund the pie in the sky $1.5 million plan. While Shaw’s technicalities are important to note, and the rates of taxation have declined in real terms, to tell the man who paid $12,000 last year, and is faced with over $30,000 this year, that he has had no increase is simply taking Jamaicans for fools.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his merry band should remember that the Jamaican people will not be taken for fools for too long. The public relations, the spinning, the deflection, and the trickery will all backfire.

While property values must be brought up to their actual value over time, it is most callous to slap on the massive increases that are being experienced all at once. The owners and renters of property, who weren’t convinced of how terrible an idea this tax “giveback” was, have now been schooled by this Administration. They must have been forced by now to spend two times the $18,000 that they were given back as a result of the increases in costs to execute their activities of daily living.

With homeowners certainly set to increase their rental costs, I have a particular concern for the hundreds of university students residing in the Corporate Area. Certainly, the property tax increases will be passed on to those who have rented homes to live in for the duration of their courses of study. Many of these students are from poor families, who get little or no benefit from this so-called giveback, but will now face additional increases being meted out in this dose of bitter medicine.

The impact of the new property tax regime cannot be good for the small businesses either, who will be faced with increased business maintenance costs. Neither can it be a good thing for pensioners or many of our public sector workers who have been called on by successive governments to sacrifice on behalf of their country. Where is the Government’s sacrifice for them? Does the Government have massive salary increases planned for them to cushion the effects of this package?

And Miss Marva, who is not going to benefit from the $33 per day increase in PATH allowance, but is faced with increases in the cost of items for her basic food basket, what do you have planned for her?

And John, the taxi driver, who is going to bat for him? He has faced increase after increase in gas prices, multiple increases in electricity and food costs, but is being told that an increase in taxi fares is unwarranted. What of his unemployed wife, and his children in primary and high school?

The minister of finance and his team can continue telling us how great this tax package is for the country and quote all the figures that they like, but the reality on the ground is far different from that in the office at Heroes’ Circle. And, after four years of waiting you finally get to deliver the bitter medicine to the Jamaican people. It must be an accomplished moment for you!

aujae.k.dixon@gmail.com