Dear Editor,
I am a divorced mother of two teenagers. I earn approximately $29,000.00 per month in a government department. After P.A.Y.E., N.I.S., Union Dues and Medical Scheme contributions are deducted, I am left with somewhere around $22000.00.
From this I take $3200.00 for transportation (I live in Ogle and work in Georgetown). I am now left with approx $19,000.00. This is further reduced to about $12,000.00 after I pay light bill, phone bill and gas $3000. I would encourage the Minister of Finance and the President to do the maths and the analysis. No groceries, vegetables, meat or fish or clothing, have been bought as yet.
Mr Editor, I understand that the VAT is intended to widen the tax-base and to target those who are evading same but we the minimum wage (low income earners) should not be made to carry this burden. We pay taxes on our small salaries, we are taxed at the bank and also have to pay rates and taxes to the City Council or NDC. Why should we have to pay more taxes. “After deductions we are left with practically nothing – it’s a starvation salary. No government should be boasting of progress when their people are living in abject poverty. Our wages need to be increased to accommodate VAT or we should be exempted from this exercise.
I beg the relevant (GRA) authorities to re-think their strategies and implementation as this VAT is tantamount to squeezing blood from stone. We should not be made to suffer like this. Our salaries are already an insult to our intelligence and a threat to our very existence and quality of life. It is hoped that good sense and good governance prevail and that GRA should have on their list those millionaires and other big ones that are truly the target for this exercise.
Yours faithfully,
(name and address
provided)
Editor’s note
Government has annou-nced the zero rating of some additional items including meats.
