Jamaicans already reporting tax cheats

KINGSTON — With just days before the Government’s new tax-cheat hotline officially goes into operation, the number announced by Finance and Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw on April 28 is already being bombarded with calls.

Director General for Tax Administration, Viralee Latibeaudiere, said April 29, that while the hotline does not officially open until May 1 “several hundred eager Jamaicans” have already been making calls to the number.

“The moment the Minister made his speech yesterday and declared that line, we were flooded with calls and we got our first report yesterday of delinquent tax payers,” she said at a post-Budget Debate press conference at the Ministry’s National Heroes Circle offices.

Minister Shaw, while opening the 2011/12 Budget Debate in Gordon House, informed that Tax Administration Jamaica would be introducing a toll-free line – 1-888-292-4328 – for persons to confidentially call in information on persons suspected of cheating the tax revenue system.

Meanwhile, despite skepticism from sectors, Mrs. Latibeaudiere said most Jamaicans welcome the new initiative. In fact, she told journalists on Friday, the hotline was developed as a result of public clamouring. 

“The 1-888 tax-cheat line came about at the request of the public. We were getting several calls reporting persons, who were not paying or filing taxes, so we decided to develop a discreet line similar to Crime Stop to protect members of the society,” she informed.

Mrs. Latibeaudiere added: “the society is becoming more empowered and persons are saying ‘how can I be paying my taxes while you don’t pay yours’?”

In the meantime, Minister Shaw said his Ministry would be providing a comprehensive list of the specific professions that would be required to file their annual income tax returns.

“We’re going to issue the list and I’m going to serve the one year warning to them to file (tax returns) March 15 next year and what the Tax Department is going to do, between now and next March, is to collate the names of every professional in Jamaica and after March 15, we’re going to check the computer to see if you have filed your returns and if not, the authorities will be getting in touch with you,” warned the Minister.

He said that while professionals were not being targeted, many of them are often self-employed “and are earning pretty healthy sums of money and are not declaring their income."

“What we want the country to understand is that we must reach a point in our life in Jamaica where everyone files his or her income tax returns,” he stated. “It must become a part of our culture. It happens in other countries, such as in the United States, and we want it to happen here,” he added.

Mr. Shaw announced on Thursday that a National Compliance Programme (NCP) would be launched, a major component of which would be the mandatory requirement for individuals in certain sectors to file an annual income tax return.

The NCP will mandate that professionals such as doctors, lawyers and accountants declare their annual income, even if they are employed to the public sector.

By ATHALIAH REYNOLDS, JIS Reporter