BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – TODAY (June 1) marks two months since the official announcement of a six-month Tax Amnesty period by the Inland Revenue Department, and according to Minister of Finance Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, the scheme is seeing significant yields.
Harris said the Department was able to get good responses from stakeholders by holding a series of meetings with the St. Kitts-Nevis Chamber of Industry and Commerce and with various communities to increase awareness of the amnesty period. He said information given in the public education programme should allow people at all levels to “proactively engage” the Inland Revenue Department.
“The public awareness programme went very well. As a result, more persons have been coming in to benefit from the tax amnesty as the beneficiary group has struck across all strata of society. The Inland Revenue has recorded several hundreds of thousands in terms of agreements regarding indebtedness and I suspect an even more significant increase,” Harris told SKNVibes in a recent interview.
Tabernacle, Sandy Point, Molyneaux and Cayon are some of the villages and towns that have already benefited from the public education programme and the Department will be targeting a number of other communities in the near future. These meetings, according to Dr. Harris, are intended to engender a new sense of fiscal prudence and responsibility in tax payers to recreate a new relationship with the Inland Revenue Department.
Harris said, “We still believe it is a good thing especially in this period of economic tightness. We want that kind of fiscal discipline to become part and parcel of the norm in the economic life of the country.”
The Finance Minister made a special appeal to all persons with indebtedness to any government office to make a concerted effort to resolve outstanding issues and enter into appropriate payment arrangement plans.
The amnesty period was designed to ease the burden of taxpayers in arrears and is applied to a total of eighteen tax imposts. The period ends on September 30 and allows a 100 percent waiver of interest and penalties.
Harris said at the end of this month, his Ministry would give a more detailed report on the collection and settlement of debts.
