Bring back income tax breaks, says Government MP

Government should reintroduce income tax breaks for parents and caregivers as soon as it can afford to.
Former home affairs minister Edmund Hinkson made the call while saying the Barbados population needs to grow to avoid a crisis.
“The issue of tax incentives which we used to have under the Owen Arthur regime – the tax breaks for two children which came off during the last administration and have not been put back on as yet – is something that will have to be considered when we can financially manage it to help parents,” he said while speaking as a member of the audience at Monday evening’s National Population Commission Town Hall Meeting at the Alexandra School.
Barbados is seeking to turn around its declining population rate. Growth has been hindered largely by a stunted 2.1 per cent birth rate and an exodus of people leaving the country to live and work abroad.
Hinkson, who is a strong supporter of the proposal for managed migration, said Barbados had failed in its attempt over a decade ago to have more Guyanese migrate here, due to policies that were not forward-thinking and progressive.
He said it is necessary to now look to attract people from other parts of the region while implementing an incentivising framework.
“We probably need to expand the categories of persons who can move freely. We’re behind the OECS [Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States] countries. In the OECS, there are seven or eight countries which have full freedom of movement…. Their integration system is further than ours at CARICOM [Caribbean Community] level,” Hinkson contended.
The former home affairs minister said Barbados is seeking to introduce a merit system, similar to what obtains in Canada where people can get citizenship “automatically”, based on their skills and other criteria.
“We are looking into attracting Barbadian descendants in the developed world and in other parts to come back here,” he said.
Meanwhile, the MP for St James North stressed that citizens must pay their taxes to maintain the country’s existing standard of living.
“Nobody wants to pay increased taxes. I think if the majority of people could get away with not paying taxes they wouldn’t [pay taxes],” he said.
“We need a situation where people need to pay the taxes and stop looking to cheat the Government. Right now, the Government is owed $1.3 billion in arrears in tax. We feel that we could collect about half of that, $650 000, but unless people pay their just taxes and dues, we can’t expand. This is a way to raise our standard of living and it has to happen because if not, as I said, in 2050 we’re going to find ourselves in severe problems, or even before that, in terms of NIS, how we look after our elderly, how we look after our people with disabilities and how we look after our most vulnerable,” Hinkson explained.
(JB)