Tax increase is usually a hot button issue and if people are pushed by the opposition, they will move to the streets to rally against the government of the day, if they feel very strong about the fairness of taxes that have been imposed.
The PNP was able to use this very effectively when they were in opposition and the JLP was in power.
Now I said above their will be no street protest against this tax due to the nature of this present opposition leader and secondly and most importantly people perspective about this tax.
Middle class persons will protest, but they will not be seen on the streets on Jamaica with placard talking about how wicked and uncaring the PNP government is, instead they will be on blogs, facebook, twitter and other social media making noise.
The Government does not consider social media protest and so will ignore these noise and mischief makers.
The upper class does not protest, instead they try to assess the situation, try to rationalize what is taking place and then execute a plan to ensure they lose no income from these new measures ie they seek to earn more to bring back equilibrium.
There is only one class of people who go to streets in Jamaica as a group, when they feel wronged and that is poor people. They will demonstrate if they believe they have been treated unfairly whether its just a perception or otherwise.
What is the general perception from the poor about this new tax as Jay speaks with a number of people
Jay ” What unno feel bout dis new tax dat the govament impose on bank withdrawal”.
Response “ Yow dada mek a tell u a ting, dat tax nah go affect poor people eno, u know why, we nuh have nuh money fi keep inna nuh bank, so dat tax nah go trouble people like we. We a hustler, we mek we money from d streets and straight cash we seh”.
Jay ” So what u saying u nah use go bank go withdraw nuh money so u nuh haffii pay no more tax”
Response ” Now u undastan d ting. A dat we seh, we nuh have no big money fi put inna no bank so dat new tax nah go trouble we”
Jay ” Unno no dat even a path cheque dat unno get, unno now haffi go pay a tax fi change it and unno dun know dat haffi change inna d bank”.
Response ” Wha u mean we haffi go pay tax fi change d path cheque check, no sah dat a nuh true and even if Peta did say so we know say Sista P ago tell im say no and dem ago change dat one, so we just ago wait and see before we say nuttin more.
Jay ” So u still nuh tink say the tax ago affect poor people” ?
Response “ Mi bredda hear deh ting yah, we nuh use debit card, we nah get no big cheque, we nuh have investment, we nuh use d point a sumting ( point of sale) ting weh we hear dem a talk bout, so mi nuh see how dis ago affect we. It wi affect people like unno, but we caan see how dat a go affect us.
Jay ” So u wud not be in favour of any street protest ” ?
Response ” (Laughter”) , ” Protest fi wah mi king, mi nuh see nuh need fi go demonstrate and write nuh placard cuz as mi and mi brethren dem a say, d new tax ting ongle ago affect people weh have money and das is y d govament dweet. Yow King, Sista P a nuh ediat eno, she n d PNP nuh how d ting setup and dem no say it nah go affect we. How much poor people u hear a bawl? D people weh a chat bout d tax wicked a d people dem weh have money a dem a mek noise pon d radio n pon facebook”.
Folks , the fact is many lower income people do not believe that this tax will have any impact on them at all and as such, will not join the howls of protest and will not go to the streets. The government responds to street protest and in most cases will do everything to avoid it and if it happens, take immediate steps to ensure it does not remain in place for too long.
So if the poor of Jamaica does are not emotional about this new “evil” tax, they will not take to the streets of Jamaica and as such the new tax will remain in place, with one slight adjustment when Portia speaks.
In that speech the Prime Minister will explain that path cheques/transactions will be exempted from this new tax measure.
That will be a concession to the poor, who will therefore be led to hold the believe that the Prime Minister is indeed looking out for the poor and the new tax regime is a tax on the rich and not the poor.
Master stroke by a party that clearly understand the thinking and limitations of a large percentage of the people of Jamaica
Filed under: Economics, Politics, Public Information |
Warren's Blog 
Peter Phillips confirms my own views and what I have picked up
Tax Measures Won’t Affect ‘Broad Mass’, Says Phillips
He has challenged critics of the tax measures to put specific suggestions on the table, suggestions to raise revenue that would have minimal impact on the poorest Jamaicans.
The PNP are geniuses .
Why Is Jamaica Selling Out Its Environment to a Blacklisted International Conglomerate?
By Richard Conniff | Takepart.com
April 22, 2014 7:17 PM
Takepart.com
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:17:58 PDT
Tourism has long been the leading economic sector in Jamaica, bringing in half of all foreign revenue to support a quarter of all jobs. Yet government officials now risk jeopardizing that lucrative business, and Jamaica’s reputation in the international community, with a secretive deal to let a Chinese company build a mega-freighter seaport smack-dab in the nation’s largest natural protected area.
The planned port would occupy the Goat Islands, in the heart of the Portland Bight Protected Area, which only last year the same government officials were petitioning UNESCO to designate a Global Biosphere Reserve. Instead, the lure of a $1.5 billion investment and a rumored 10,000 jobs has resulted in the deal with China Harbour Engineering Company, part of a conglomerate blacklisted by the World Bank under its Fraud and Corruption Sanctioning Policy.
Many details of the proposed project remain unknown, and the government has rebuffed repeated requests for information under Jamaica’s equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. But the plan is believed to involve clear-cutting the mangrove forests on both Goat Islands, building up a level work area using dredge spoils from the surrounding waters, and constructing a coal-fired power plant to support the new infrastructure. The port, including areas currently designated as marine sanctuaries, would accommodate “post-Panamax”-size ships—up to 1,200 feet long and with a 50-foot draft—arriving via the newly expanded Panama Canal.
The new port would compromise an area known for extensive sea‐grass beds, coral reefs, wetlands, and Jamaica’s largest mangrove forests (mangroves sequester more per-acre carbon than rainforests do). The protected area is also home to the Jamaican iguana, a species believed extinct until its dramatic rediscovery in 1990. Since then, the international conservation community has spent millions of dollars rebuilding the iguana population in a protected forest in the Hellshire Hills, part of the reserve adjacent to the proposed port. Much of that investment hinged on the government’s promise, now apparently discarded, that the Goat Islands would become a permanent home for the iguanas, which are Jamaica’s largest vertebrate species.
“It sends a really poor message to the international conservation community—that an investment in Jamaica is not a good investment, that it can be wiped out in the blink of an eye,” said Byron Wilson, a herpetologist at the University of the West Indies. Wilson warned that a proposed causeway from the Goat Islands to the mainland, and the likely development of a community of workers, would consign the mainland iguana population to re-extinction. “Any place you put a lot of Chinese workers around the world, the wildlife suffers—it’s pretty clear.”
“Everything is for sale in Jamaica,” and not just the Goat Islands, added Rick Hudson, a herpetologist at the Fort Worth Zoo who has long collaborated on the iguana project. “They’re committed to developing every inch of the coastline for high-end hotels and resorts. There’s going to be no natural environment left.” Thus not much reason to visit Jamaica in the first place.
Jamaica’s existing port in Kingston Harbor could be expanded to handle the new traffic, Alfred Sangster, past president of Jamaica’s University of Technology, wrote earlier this week in the Jamaica Observer. The Chinese decision to reject that option “reflects a clear desire to have an enclave on the islands” where it can operate with fewer restrictions. He characterized the Chinese as the “new colonialists…in a country which has long memories of the legacies of colonialism.”
Diana McCaulay, CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust, noted that the government has already relaxed work permit rules and created new categories of economic citizenship to accommodate the proposed project. On previous projects with Chinese contractors, she said, the majority of employees have been Chinese people. “And where they do employ Jamaican people, they don’t obey our work rules,” she said. She also worried that the secret terms of the deal may include tax or other incentives. “What is the benefit to Jamaica? That’s not clear.”
She added that China Harbour had insisted on building a coal-fired power plant, despite the inevitable contribution to climate change, because Jamaica’s electricity rates are too high. “Imagine that. We have to pay [the high rates], and they don’t.”
As one of the most indebted nations in the world, Jamaica is dependent on an International Monetary Fund financial package that stipulates paying down the nation’s debts. McCaulay attributed the deal to “desperation for what they call ‘development,’ but it’s more about winning an election in two years” for the government of Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller “than any benefit to Jamaica.”
“We live on a small island,” she added, “and it’s hard to believe anything universal is happening here. But it’s this whole idea that we should have more consumption. We already don’t know what to do with our wastes. We know we’re going to see sea level rise, and yet we just keep building more. We’re not stopping at all.”
Conservationists say the Jamaican government does not much concern itself over internal protests, but both Jamaica and China are concerned about international opinion. Jamaica’s economy depends largely on European and American tourists, and the U.S. consumer market is the ultimate destination for most ships that would be using the Goat Islands port. So signatures from outside Jamaica may carry weight on a petition asking Prime Minister Simpson-Miller to stop the proposed development.