Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

The group Stand Up T&T has start­ed a pe­ti­tion call­ing on Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to re­peal the sev­en per cent on­line tax in­tro­duced in the 2016/2017 bud­get last Fri­day.

The group start­ed the pe­ti­tion with­in 24 hours of the bud­get be­ing read in the Par­lia­ment and so far it has gath­ered over 1,800 sig­na­tures.

With the ti­tle "Re­peal the 7% On­line Tax NOW!!!", the pe­ti­tion la­bels the move to tax on­line shop­pers as "ad­van­ta­geous."

"Mr Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, that 7% tax on on­line shop­ping is puni­tive and ob­scene and pan­ders to big busi­ness while deny­ing con­sumers their right to free choice. It is heinous, ne­far­i­ous, griev­ous, spu­ri­ous, egre­gious and ad­van­ta­geous," the pe­ti­tion reads.

It adds: "It is of­fen­sive to the spir­it of a free mar­ket econ­o­my and an af­front to de­cen­cy. It is gov­ern­ment by big stick and pol­i­cy for hire. We de­mand fair play and re­spect for all. We de­mand the re­peal of the 7% On­line Tax NOW!!!"

The pe­ti­tion's sup­port­ers had a lot to say about the tax, which kicks in on Oc­to­ber 20, as well.

Ali­cia Hack­shaw wrote: "You can­not force the cit­i­zen­ry to pur­chase items where you and your bud­dies want us to. This is not a com­mu­nist dic­ta­tor­ship. Quit act­ing like it. You are killing small busi­ness­es that re­ly on such couri­ers to bring in their goods as well.

"Why not fix the sys­temic prob­lem of ex­ces­sive prices and poor cus­tomer ser­vice first, es­pe­cial­ly if you wish to at­tract more tourists in­to the coun­try."

An­oth­er sup­port­er, Aneil Jat­tans­ingh, said lo­cal busi­ness­men are too "greedy."

"Why can't busi­ness­es in T&T try to be com­pet­i­tive? Why does an SUV that re­tails for US$20K cost TT$400K? They pay rent, staff and tax­es there too. Lo­cal busi­ness­men are too greedy."

Sup­port­er Kaleem Mo­hammed called on the Gov­ern­ment to re­move some of the tax­es on cit­i­zens, writ­ing: "Why tax every­thing? Enough is enough. The Gov­ern­ment try­ing to milk a dry cow. They done sap­ping all the milk we have ... moo damn it!"

While the pe­ti­tion gath­ered sup­port yes­ter­day, busi­ness­man Hol­lis George said those with on­line ship­ping com­pa­nies should not op­pose the tax.

George, who owns and man­ages In­Style Lo­gis­tics and Shop­ping Ser­vices and Sa­fari Couri­ers, two on­line shop­ping com­pa­nies, told the T&T Guardian the tax should be ap­plied for a tri­al ba­sis.

"Let us say you are liv­ing in Amer­i­ca, you have to pay the gov­ern­ment tax if you are shop­ping on­line there. There is no if or but," George said.

"I think it should be mon­i­tored close­ly and the Gov­ern­ment should be pre­pared to amend it af­ter a year, so they can know how ef­fec­tive it is and if it is serv­ing the pur­pose of en­cour­ag­ing cus­tomers to shop lo­cal."

He said he is not rush­ing to raise his ship­ping rates ei­ther.

"This tax is new to us now and it's up to the Sky­box com­pa­nies and their cus­tomers to work out that tax. Per­son­al­ly, I am not go­ing to just change my rates off the bat... I' would be look­ing at what Cus­toms is do­ing and what the dif­fer­ence is on my cost af­ter Oc­to­ber 20," he added.

He said he had seen the on­line pe­ti­tion him­self but did not both­er to read or sup­port it.

"The prob­lem is no one who goes in­to a busi­ness is will­ing to ab­sorb a high­er cost, most of the times the ex­cess is sent down to the cus­tomer," George said.

"On­line shop­ping is a lux­u­ry. It is some­thing you stay in-house and or­der and it is dam­ag­ing our lo­cal mar­kets. I have cus­tomers that are im­port­ing light bulbs for their homes when it can be bought lo­cal­ly. It is a bit ex­ces­sive and there needs to be a bal­ance," he added.

George said there was al­so sea freight ser­vice called Sea Box which got your item here with­in one week and could be used as an al­ter­na­tive to air freight.

Im­bert: Every lit­tle bit counts

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day that Gov­ern­ment could do a lot with the tax earned from on­line shop­pers, in­clud­ing run­ning a hos­pi­tal.

He made the com­ment as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions on the new sev­en per cent on­line shop­ping tax at the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try Com­merce's post-Bud­get fo­rum yes­ter­day.

Asked to com­ment on pub­lic crit­i­cism that Gov­ern­ment was tar­get­ting the small man in­stead of big busi­ness­es with the tax, Im­bert said: "The banks tell me that the cred­it card pur­chas­es in T&T per an­num ex­ceed US$1 bil­lion."

Pressed on whether he should not go af­ter the re­tail sec­tor in­stead of the "small fry" or in­di­vid­u­als, Im­bert asked re­porters what method would be used to do so.

"We are go­ing to be earn­ing US$70 mil­lion from that (tax­ing sev­en per cent on all pur­chas­es). That's not a small amount at all. Every lit­tle bit counts, $70 mil­lion could run a hos­pi­tal."