Just prior to the start of the New Year, Jamaicans got their latest dose of bad news that made them start to wish 2014 would stay away for a little while longer. But like a car running down a hill without brakes, we all knew we could not delay the inevitable.

The new year was arriving faster than ever before, and with it the possibility of new taxes on a wider range of goods and more significantly, taxes on petrol products!

People were in disbelief. How in God's name can the Government be thinking of adding new taxes to an already over-burdened population, and the ever-diminishing numbers of us who can pay taxes? My wife is mulling over whether this latest round of proposed taxes will be the straw that breaks the back of the proverbial camel and people will take to the streets. Or they will, like has become the norm lately, suck it up and proceed to the nearest party and get drunk.

A part of me wants to believe the proposal to tax fuel is just that - a proposal. But the longer I thought about it, I came to realise that these taxes are as inevitable as the sun rising in the East, because despite what the Government says about a study being done on the proposed new taxes, deep down I know they have already agreed to do it. They leaked the news so that they can gauge how John Public will react.

And this is what makes me mad. How much more does the Government think people can afford to pay in terms of taxes? Adding 16.5 per cent to the cost of fuel is going to add an additional 16.5 per cent on everything that is trucked from one point of the island to the other as in goods for sale at supermarkets and so on; 16.5 per cent to the cost of your electricity, and 16.5 per cent on the cost of everything that electricity is used to produce.

And while all of this is happening, salaries are not moving and the dollar is sliding in the wrong direction. In short, the skies just got a whole lot darker because we seem to be spending much of our existence being pummelled by heavy taxation, even as we dodge the bullets of the criminals who have run amok in our country.

The other thing that makes me mad (and I am saying this nicely) is that with the Government planning to broadside us with these new taxes, there is news that there are companies who recently got J$4.2 billion in waivers that owe the Government a whopping $1.2 billion in taxes. What this means is that these companies are getting a windfall of $5.4 billion dollars. In addition, according to reports in the media, 11 companies owe the government $5.2 billion in General Consumption Tax, and I am sure there is more money out there owed to us by these companies.

It is against this background that I find it crazy that Government is not collecting these monies that they need to meet budget shortfalls as dictated by the International Monetary Fund, but is choosing to go back to the almost dry well of struggling taxpayers.

It's absolutely crazy. Yes, I know these are hard times and we have to fix Jamaica's fiscal woes if the country is to have any decent shot at a prosperous future, but taxing us to death cannot be the only solution. The companies that owe money, especially GCT that does not belong to them, need to pay up and the Government needs to ensure that they do. It is theft and it needs to be collected.

Driving up the cost of everything on people who are already paying through their noses is nothing short or cruel. People can barely afford to live these days, so the solution cannot be to further break their spirits. PAYE people are carrying the bulk of the country's tax burden. It's high time they get a break.

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