KSAC Goes After Delinquent Businesses

Mayor of Kingston, Senator Angela Brown Burke, and her team will take to the streets today to continue seeking out businesses that are still delinquent in the payment of trade licence fees in downtown Kingston.

Senator Brown Burke said that in the ‘name and shame’ phase of the initiative, her team will be out in full force.

“We will be visiting those businesses which, despite our best efforts, have refused to comply with this simple obligation of paying $5,000 per year for their trade licence…and we will also be placing in the papers, a notice that includes who they are,” she said.

Mayor Brown Burke was addressing a press conference, prior to the start of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) monthly meeting, at its Church Street chambers in downtown Kingston, yesterday.

In September, the Mayor informed a meeting of the Council that the initiative, which is in collaboration with Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ), had already begun to reap rewards with some $1.5 million collected by the TAJ in the first week of that month. This is in comparison to the just over $260,000 collected in July.

On September 3, the KSAC and TAJ partnered in a bid to increase the collection of trade licence fees from the current $10 million per year to $75 million.

Currently, the Trade Licence fee is set at a maximum of $5,000 for larger companies and the penalty for non-compliance is even lower.