By Andre Iton

The Government of the day, confronted with extreme pressures from a myriad of external sources have, it would seem succeeded in presenting a budget that, on the face of it, reflects the will of the overwhelming majority of the voting populace.

The holy grail of “No Direct Taxes” has not been violated. A triumph of democracy you might say?

By way of various fee increases, to be levied in the main, on the middle and lower classes, the fundamental structure of the economy has been maintained for the time being.

The masters of our micro-universe can continue to provide succor to the wealthiest 1% of humanity, as this latter group continues its avaricious grab of the world’s wealth, all in the name of democracy and globalization, comfortable in the knowledge that its core philosophy, trickle-down economics, is alive and well in places like the Cayman Islands.

As suggested earlier, the new fees introduced in the recently unveiled budget may well do the trick for the current period and additional budget periods in the immediate future, but we would do well to ask some questions about the fundamentals at work here.

Given the generally depressed state of the domestic economy, (it as always necessary to make the distinction between the domestic economy comprised mainly of locals and transients not directly engaged in the offshore business, and the offshore economy comprised of a powerful minority cocooned in the rarified air of the high rise buildings serving the global market’s efficiency seekers) the imposition of additional indirect taxes on the small business segment and the heavily indebted locals is more likely to lead to further near term contraction of the economy and to exacerbate the social problems that are rapidly emerging .

One would therefore have to assume that the thinking in the quarters that matter remains that the offshore sector’s trickledown effect will provide the principal source of growth necessary for the turnaround in the economic fortunes of the country and that as a community we remain very comfortable with growth measures that give short shrift to distribution considerations.

Additionally the fundamental constructs of the new fees geared specifically at the small business sector and the transient communities, in particular the latter group, are nothing short of being exploitative.

Let me demonstrate.

A Jamaican national using the Senvia service remittance service currently sending $1,000.00 home effects the transaction at a cost of $5.00. The proposed fee 2%, to be levied on the amount remitted would increase the cost of the transaction by 400% to $25.00!

At a minimum the cost to those low income individuals making use of similar services can be expected to increase by not less than 80% per transaction!

At the same time the wire activity conducted by the offshore fund industry through the clearing banks , an activity in value hundreds of multiples of that transacted by the low income remitters remains off limits for fees. We don’t want that business to go, they say.

The rent levy is directed at business tenants, in the main these would be small businesses that tend not to be owners of the premises from which they conduct their modest operations.

In the absence of a property tax, ownership is the commercial property is exempt from any similar levy. Those businesses conducting their multi-billion operations from owned premises need not worry. We don’t want that business to be disrupted, they say.

It may well be that we sort out our current fiscal woes with policies that continue to serve only the best interest of those who would predicate and perpetuate global inequity.

Whether this would be a sufficient condition for ensuring growth in the next generation, a generation unlikely to be dominated by the Anglo-Saxon philosophies that inform this thinking is a question that must be urgently asked and honestly answered by us all.