There are 34 fis­cal mea­sures in this 2027 Bud­get and the pri­or­i­ties based on al­lo­ca­tion are Ed­u­ca­tion, Health and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Let’s ex­am­ine some of the fis­cal mea­sures.

1) The car­ried for­ward loss­es for busi­ness­es will now be lim­it­ed to 75 per cent of charge­able prof­its, which means that Gov­ern­ment will now get rev­enue from tax­a­tion on the re­main­ing 25 per cent of prof­its in­stead of ze­ro. It is a rea­son­able mea­sure.

2) Pe­tro­le­um com­pa­nies on­ly, will pay 3.0 per cent more on tax­able prof­its as an Un­em­ploy­ment Levy. This means 8.0 per cent rather than 5.0 per cent. It is rea­son­able to sup­port jobs for the un­em­ployed from en­er­gy.

3) The with­hold­ing tax for dis­tri­b­u­tions to non-res­i­dent in­di­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies and non-res­i­dent par­ent com­pa­nies has been in­creased by 2.0 per cent in each case—a rea­son­able mea­sure to re­tain a lit­tle more from repa­tri­able funds.

4) The re­view of al­co­hol tax­es is more sup­port­ive of lo­cal pro­duc­tion and in­creas­es tax­a­tion on high­er-val­ue im­port­ed prod­ucts. Con­sumers of lo­cal prod­ucts will pay less and con­sumers of lux­u­ry prod­ucts will pay more. This is a more ra­tio­nal ap­proach.

5) VAT has been im­posed on dig­i­tal ser­vices sup­plied by non-res­i­dent providers so that Gov­ern­ment ex­pands the tax net. It is a rea­son­able rev­enue mea­sure, but that tax will like­ly be passed on to the con­sumer here.

6) This mea­sure brings re­mote providers of ser­vices to busi­ness in­to the tax net, again ex­pand­ing the tax base.

7) This mea­sure dis­al­lows an en­ti­ty earn­ing in­come al­ready ex­empt from tax­es from tak­ing tax con­ces­sions at ear­li­er points, which in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly mul­ti­ply ben­e­fits. It seeks to close a loop­hole.

8) This mea­sure reg­u­lates cig­a­rette im­por­ta­tion and the va­p­ing in­dus­try. It is need­ed.

9) The tax­a­tion and reg­u­la­tion of clas­sic, vin­tage and an­tique ve­hi­cles af­fects a nar­row band and seeks to bring or­der to a niche in­dus­try

10) The 5.0 per cent sur­charge on elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion over 3,000 kilo­watt-hours per billing pe­ri­od will al­so af­fect a rel­a­tive­ly small band.

The 10 mea­sures above will gen­er­ate rev­enue, which the Gov­ern­ment has done well to iden­ti­fy, to ra­tio­nalise, to in­crease the tax net and an­nu­al rev­enue. This is much need­ed, giv­en the short­fall in rev­enue from en­er­gy pro­duc­tion.

There are al­so some re­lief and in­cen­tive mea­sures.

11) The in­crease of $12,000 an­nu­al­ly to pub­lic ser­vice pen­sion­ers can­not but be seen as a wel­come re­lief.

12) The Farm Busi­ness For­mal­i­sa­tion Pro­gramme is a good thing. Ef­fec­tive­ly done, this can sup­port farm­ers, ex­pand the num­ber of agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­ers and in­crease pro­duc­tion.

13) Ex­pand­ing the Agri­cul­tur­al In­tern­ship Pro­gramme can on­ly be a good thing.

23) In­te­gra­tion of Tech­ni­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Train­ing in the school sys­tem is a de­sir­able ac­tion.

24) The READY In­tern­ship Pro­gramme for 1,300 sec­ondary school stu­dents is a pos­i­tive step

25) The $250 in­creas­es for se­nior cit­i­zens, those on pub­lic as­sis­tance and on dis­abil­i­ty as­sis­tance must be so wel­come by these peo­ple and their care­givers.

26) The ex­pan­sion and strength­en­ing of a Na­tion­al Care and Sup­port Pro­gramme can on­ly be pos­i­tive in a coun­try with an age­ing pop­u­la­tion

32, 33) The gov­ern­ment’s Sav­ings Bond and In­vest­ment Pro­gramme for the mass of the pop­u­la­tion should be seen as an ini­tia­tive for fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion.

In his two-and-a-half-hour pre­sen­ta­tion, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance said his fo­cus was on in­vest­ment, pro­duc­tion, jobs and op­por­tu­ni­ties. The de­liv­ery of these is left to be seen.

He men­tioned a pipeline of pos­si­ble non-en­er­gy in­vest­ments, en­er­gy de­liv­ery dates and gov­ern­ment projects. He did not say how these will be fi­nanced. So, the ac­tu­al in­vest­ment, growth-in­duc­ing, job-in­creas­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ty-en­hanc­ing de­tails are not there.

But, one has a strong sense that Gov­ern­ment is on the right track and pre­pared to do the right things. A lot de­pends on pri­vate in­vest­ment as Gov­ern­ment nav­i­gates in a wait­ing pe­ri­od for nat­ur­al gas, rev­enue, deficit and high debt and lim­it­ed pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture.

The an­nounce­ment on di­vest­ment of Hilton, Mag­dale­na, Na­tion­al Quar­ries and Labid­co on­ly in­creas­es the need for the pri­vate sec­tor, lo­cal and for­eign, to step up and in­vest.

In this bud­get, Gov­ern­ment has sig­nalled the pre­sen­ta­tion of an an­nu­al fis­cal strat­e­gy; it seems com­mit­ted to reengi­neer­ing Trea­sury op­er­a­tions and is strength­en­ing In­land Rev­enue and stream­lin­ing VAT.

They are al­so now look­ing at a draft trans­fer pric­ing pol­i­cy and the deep­en­ing of cap­i­tal mar­kets. Im­ple­men­ta­tion is key.

We can see fo­cus on stream­lin­ing the tax­a­tion sys­tem, strength­en­ing com­pli­ance and en­force­ment, align­ment with tighter in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial con­trols, im­prov­ing the busi­ness cli­mate, digi­ti­sa­tion ac­tions and sig­nif­i­cant at­tempts at fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion and re­dress for the most vul­ner­a­ble.

This bud­get opens the door to pri­vate in­vest­ment. On­ly time will tell if pri­vate cap­i­tal steps up.