Twisting reality
USp-leader Frans Richardson is twisting reality with his statements about the approach of Finance Minister Richard Gibson towards tax reform. We’re not here to defend Minister Gibson (he explains his position elsewhere) but to give our readers accurate information.
The United St. Maarten party wants to get rid of all taxes and replace this with a single sales tax.
The National Alliance, and Minister Gibson with it, proposes to lower income and profit taxes and to move in the direction of indirect taxation in combination with a broadening of the tax base.
The devil is always in the details here but while Minister Gibson wants to simplify the tax system, USp-leader Frans Richardson seems out to simplify the truth or to even rewrite it.
There is nothing against having a difference of opinion, but it would be interesting for the electorate if those differences are contested over facts.
Instead, Richardson has chosen to throw out a bunch of platitudes that say more about him than about the target of his remarks. This style of practicing politics is unfortunate – to put it mildly – and it positions Richardson as a street fighter rather than the politician he pretends to be.
But hey, this is politics, and the elections are almost there. Richardson figures that he could make some hay with a couple of rude remarks towards a member of the same Council of Ministers his party currently supports. When the dust settles after September 26, the USp-leader may come out with a statement saying that his remarks were ‘not personal” – even though everyone can see that they are. Of course they are personal.
This also makes Richardson’s arguments weak. It feels a bit like a kid in Kindergarten with a tantrum.
But who knows? Maybe USp-voters will fall into this trap and swallow every word their party-leader produces.
The bottom line is that while Richardson has convinced himself that the National Alliance agrees with his indirect taxation system, but the truth is slightly different. Slightly does not mean unimportant.
There is a huge difference between replacing all taxes with a single sales tax – as Richardson wants – and a more gradual approach that includes lower income and profit taxes, a broadening of the tax base and a move towards indirect taxation.
How high is Richardson’s sales tax going to be to recoup roughly 312 million guilders in revenue that currently comes from wage tax, profit tax and turnover tax?
Of those 312 million, 142 million stems from turnover taxes, based on the current rate of 5 percent. To bring in the remaining 170 million would require another 6 percent, bringing the sales tax to at least 11 percent – and we are being conservative here.
It would increase the cost of every $100 grocery shopping by $11 – $572 per year – while all other purchases – from gas to furniture, house hold appliances, clothing, electronics and what have you would also go up by 11 percent.
It could easily put consumers back $1,000 or more per year – and that goes for all consumers – the minimum wage earners, the middle class and the top earners. And that is a fair taxation system?
