The time is right for an in­de­pen­dent analy­sis of the mul­ti­ple tax­es im­posed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment.

The com­par­a­tive analy­sis by tax ex­perts and ac­coun­tants should al­so ex­am­ine the po­ten­tial val­ue, ef­fi­ca­cy and fair­ness of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) that was be­ing put in place by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment.

Fur­ther­more, the analy­sis and as­sess­ment should take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the fears ex­pressed by the present ad­min­is­tra­tion when in op­po­si­tion that the then gov­ern­ment would use the TTRA to cor­rupt­ly pry in­to the pri­vate af­fairs of cit­i­zens.

One se­ri­ous com­par­i­son which must be analysed is the rel­a­tive re­gres­sive and pro­gres­sive na­ture of the two sys­tems. Will the mul­ti­ple new tax­a­tion mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment im­pact with greater force on the low­er- and mid­dle-in­come so­cio-eco­nom­ic class­es of the so­ci­ety com­pared to the pro­posed op­er­a­tions of the TTRA?

When the op­er­a­tional pro­pos­als were put for­ward for the TTRA, the then gov­ern­ment claimed the sys­tem would be pro­gres­sive, which re­quired high-in­come earn­ers and cor­po­ra­tions, lo­cal and for­eign, to pay their fair share of tax­es, which many were said to be evad­ing, legal­ly, and oth­er­wise.

The big ques­tion to be an­swered, there­fore, by the in­de­pen­dent as­ses­sors is whether the pro­ject­ed $10 bil­lion fig­ure, which was to be col­lect­ed un­der the TTRA, was based on a re­al­is­tic as­sess­ment of the pos­si­bil­i­ties; or was it an un­re­al as­pi­ra­tion?

Sim­i­lar­ly, there must be some in­di­ca­tion of the like­ly an­nu­al in­take from the new and var­ied tax­a­tion mea­sures im­posed by the present gov­ern­ment. Very im­por­tant­ly, are the new tax­a­tion mea­sures de­signed to cap­ture in­di­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions which are now out­side the tax net; or will they pe­nalise fur­ther ex­ist­ing tax­pay­ers?

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion and analy­sis be­ing ad­vo­cat­ed would amount to a break­through of in­volve­ment of the pro­fes­sion­al in­di­vid­u­als, and in­sti­tu­tions of the coun­try in a sys­tem­at­ic man­ner.

At present on such mat­ters, the po­lit­i­cal par­ties in­side and out­side of gov­ern­ment make de­ci­sions and in­sti­tute poli­cies and pro­grammes, while sig­nif­i­cant pro­fes­sion­al in­sti­tu­tions stay on the side­lines; ex­cept for a few in­di­vid­u­als brave enough to lend their as­sess­ment to gov­er­nance of the coun­try.

There is an ab­solute need for our as­so­ci­a­tions of pro­fes­sion­als to make their con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment in an or­gan­ised and se­mi-of­fi­cial man­ner that can be ben­e­fi­cial to the coun­try.

The suc­cess­ful op­er­a­tions of a democ­ra­cy re­quire full in­volve­ment by pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies in the so­ci­ety in an or­gan­ised and in an in­de­pen­dent man­ner. Sim­i­lar­ly, there is a need for open and rel­e­vant chan­nels of pub­lic opin­ion to in­flu­ence gov­er­nance mea­sures which are pro­posed and adopt­ed by the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion.

We have had the re­cent in­struc­tive ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors tak­ing a stand, in the na­tion­al in­ter­est, on the pro­posed ZOSO Bill, giv­ing cre­dence to the fact that a so­ci­ety will be well served by in­de­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tions. Fur­ther­more, it must be ac­knowl­edged that the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty moves for­ward based on the con­tri­bu­tions of its col­lec­tive re­sources.

Let’s there­fore open dis­cus­sion to achieve true democ­ra­cy.