Income tax or ‘failed tax’

Mar 06, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

When one takes time to consider the success of any performance, usually the pass grade or acceptable level is 50 percent. However, in my observations of the level of income tax submitted to our Tax Administration by self employed citizens over the years, it marvels me that we have seen no improvement of the same. In addition, if one applies the same analogy of the successful grade or pass rate of 50 percent, then we would be very clear that our Tax Administration has failed tremendously to enforce the income tax policy or….. could it be that the policy of ‘income tax’ has failed?
Below is a trend of income tax filed by self employed persons for 2010 to 2019.

(Extracts from the Auditor General’s Reports 2010 – 2019)

Considering the above, should we see income tax as discriminatory since only employees being paid through a payroll system are 100 percent compliant?
To compound this, everyone is subject to his/her share of Value Added Tax (14 percent) and National Insurance Contribution (5.6 percent). Therefore, as a consequence, the average employee faces an effective tax rate on yearly earnings of 47.6 percent (28 percent + 5.6 percent + 14 percent) after consideration of the applicable threshold. And, we are cognizant that the average employee earns under 180k monthly, which might be considered as a very ambitious figure by some.
Hence, it would be reasonable to say that Income Tax has not performed as it ought to and should be better enforced or restructured to ensure that everyone has good incentives to be compliant or removed.

Humble Citizen,
J. Yearwood