Kamla calls for removal of online purchase tax

THE GOVERNMENT must remove the seven per cent online purchase tax and make no moves to increase it, says Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

This, she said, would serve as a tangible measure to ease the onerous cost of living and assist Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in their procurement of essential supplies for their operations.

The former prime minister stated that the implementation of this tax has furthered the financial pressures on emerging entrepreneurs, existing SMEs and enterprising citizens while also being a contrary approach to dealing with the foreign exchange crisis.

Persad-Bissessar said that finance minister Colm Imbert’s statement that there has been “an explosion in online shopping over the last several years” suggests that the Government is considering increasing the online tax as a high-handed and punitive measure.

She said this would negatively impact the SME sector, fledgling entrepreneurs and sole business operators who conduct many of their purchases online for speed, savings, flexibility and efficiency.

She noted that local shipping companies are on record in the local media as saying that there is no “explosion” of online shopping.

Persad-Bissessar said the Government should look at other sources of increasing income, such as acting upon the many failed promises they have made over the years about diversifying the economy.

She said they should also aggressively institute measures to boost the declining energy sector and to return the Point Lisas Industrial Estate to its fullest potential.

Persad-Bissessar said the United National Congress has a policy of encouraging entrepreneurship and is strongly against any tax that punishes ambition and the growth of free enterprises, which, by extension, creates jobs and adds to the overall economy.

She said further in a release that Government must increase foreign exchange earnings–not punish creative and ambitious citizens.

At a news conference at the Opposition Leader’s Port of Spain office, Opposition Senator Damian Lyder said SME’s were hit a “blow” when Republic Bank announced it was slashing its credit card limit for US from $10,000 to $5,000.

He said many of these companies who are struggling to get US dollars from the bank became dependent on using credit cards to make purchases for their businesses.

Lyder said there is a forex crisis in this country and Imbert tries to “gaslight” the country when he says that this country is advancing financially.

He questioned whether Imbert thinks the business sector are “uneducated fools” to believe his excuses for the shortage in foreign exchange in this country.

Lyder said the most “pivotal event” that led to the forex crisis was the closure of the Petrotrin refinery which was earning upwards US$300 million annually.

Petrotrin, he said, now sits as a “scrap iron” heap with no forward moves to re-start its operations.

Lyder said many foreign companies have left this country in droves and more than US$1.7 billion in businesses have opted to go to other places. The collapse of the tourism sector, he said, also impacts on foreign exchange being brought into T&T.