Submitted by Wayne Cadogan

Now that the dust has settled regarding the National Social Responsibility Levy (NSRL) I would like to add my two cents to the debate. All countries have always had to depend on taxes to run their country and clearly, the Value Added Tax (VAT) did not accomplish what it was intended to do. The main reason why it failed is because the government did not have total control and several businesses refused to pay the VAT after collecting it. If it was being efficiently collected, there would be no need to create the NSRL tax.

Now that a tax has been implemented which affects everybody and that businesses cannot get away with ‘murder’ as they were accustomed, they will continue to cry out because they all have to pay the NSRL up front now that the government has greater control over its collection.

My advice to the Minister of Finance and the government, now that you have a cash cow and sound method of everybody paying the NSRL tax, remove the 17.5 VAT tax completely and increase the NSRL tax to 15% and this would ease the burden on the taxpayers and the guaranteed tax collection from all, especially the businesses and more so those unscrupulous business owners.

While I am at it concerning taxes and that the country is faced with all sorts of people dumping their garbage all over the country, especially the gullies and other places. I would like to suggest to the government that they impose a 2% waste disposable levy on all large, small appliances and electronics.  This way the owner pays up front for the disposable when it is no longer functional and has to be disposed of.

I would hope that since the country is about to move into election mode that the current government does not wait until the last minute of the silly season to drop such a ploy on the people of Barbados such as dropping taxes to confuse the masses as they did the last election with the old woman and the bus advertisement.