MONTEGO BAY, St James – MEGAMART’S CEO Gassan Azan last week warned Prime Minister Bruce Golding that “its way out of the present crisis” would bring further pressure on the few taxpayers who are compliant.

“If we impose additional taxes without first ensuring higher levels of compliance, we will only continue to penalise the 45 per cent who are compliant,” Azan remarked.

Instead, Azan recommended that the Bruce Golding-led administration, make the process of tax payment simpler, to inspire the over 60 per cent of the “taxable population that have remained outside of the tax net” to begin “to consider it their civic duty to be tax compliant”.

“I would suggest instead of attempting to tax ourselves out of the crisis, we concentrate on removing the bureaucratic obstacles and ‘incentivise’ production,” charged Azan.

He was speaking at the 10th anniversary celebration of MegaMart, at the Montego Bay branch on Saturday.

In a swift response, Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who was guest speaker at the event, expressed that all taxable individuals will be targeted under the tax reform programme.

“Look, you (analagous to tax dodgers) have really not been contributing your fair share to the expenses of this family and this house (government’s coffers) for a long time,” said Golding, who was using a household analogy. “Therefore, we need to get hold of you and we need to get your proper share in there, which is what this tax reform programme is all about.”

He added: “I don’t want to leave any ambiguity in the minds of people that this is something that we have never done perhaps for the past 20-30 years; something that perhaps we have never been prepared to do, we are at that point in our lives now when we are going to have to start paying our way. We are going to have to decide that we are going to so design the menu to afford what goes in that pot, and what comes out on that plate.”