On July 1st, we all awoke to realise we were missing 13% of our cookies, and when we looked around – all the children had crumbs all over their faces! Hmm. Time to ask questions, and yet – when each was asked, they all blamed the others!
Turns out. Clues to the 13% tax are all there – in the 2013 Budget – with lots of crumbs to follow that trail! Let’s get a big, wet face cloth and start wiping off those chins, one child at a time, starting in 2019.
“They Were Clutching 17% of the Cookies!”
Well, if we can clear our heads from feeling so hungry, we can recall chasing one batch of children out of the kitchen in the last election. Why? They were salivating to get into that jar and snatch 17% more of our cookies! Out. Shoo! We all wanted some new children to help save cookies and promise not to pinch them, especially after five years of having them chewed up in the night, at the port as duties – pretending to simplify all that confusion, mixing fuel import licences into our gas tanks and current bills, whipping up property and then accommodation taxes, taxing the lotteries, and then having the sass to stand right there at the kitchen door and declare they’d be back for more before our heads hit the pillows. Crumbs were all over their lips – and their 2019 Budget!
Then, the New Children Gobbled up 13% of the Cookies the First Chance They Got!
When some new children came along and polished the apple and looked so smart at the front of the class, we were relieved as soon as they won the school popularity contest. We thought those cookies were safe, at last.
But… No sooner did we try to get back to baking than they hopped into shiny new wagons and rushed to that kitchen. They brought two of their toughest friends to plan the cookie heist and keep us all off guard, smiling and acting like maybe they would get smart and cap the jar. Then, it came. That fateful night of July 1st – awakening to see crumbs all over their mouths, giving lip service to how bagging all those cookies would feed the whole family, when only they got to eat. We went into sugar shock that very day.
“They Started It!” Cried the Ones We Ran out of the House
Still, one can’t wipe away the tears of the ones sent home after all their binges, crying, “They started it!” When we turned back to the teacher’s pets and lifted up their chins to look for crumbs, sure enough! Page 215 of their daddy’s budget revealed a massive morsel entitled, “Project Name: Tax Reform”! The project Status was “Ongoing” – and it described “VAT” as…
“… a broad based consumption tax assessed and charged as a percentage of prices of all goods and services that are bought and sold for use or consumption…” We already had them, especially Customs Duties and fees, blended into all goods and services consumed long before GST – which is the same as VAT, in case you were a bit late to class in 2013.
It continued: “The VAT Implementation Project is aimed at implementing a Value Added Tax to address and eliminate [sic] some of the vulnerabilities and of the current tax system. VAT will ensure a steadier, more reliable stream of revenue during the various stages of the economic cycle and an increase in government revenues.” How could rolling numerous private businesses under civil and criminal penalty threats into collecting taxes while being flattened by other taxes and financial demands far beyond their control ever be “more reliable” than at Customs, where you don’t get your goodies if you don’t pay – or Inland Revenue, where they portend penalties every day, or even the three utilities/communications companies that can cut you off? (Well, unless you’re the government.) And “an increase in government revenues”? For what?
“…VAT will simplify existing cascading, complex, discriminatory, and costly indirect tax system, improve indirect tax administration, and reduce tax evasion. To date, the VAT Implementation Team has been established, technical assistance and training have taken place. A rate analysis study has been conducted, VAT Legislation drafted and a list of potential taxpayers has been compiled.” Looks like the blame for planning the cookie raid started, in fact, with the new children’s daddy, all of them speckled with crumbs on their faces.
Lip service, indeed. That project description is right out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office cookbook for frying nations that have not lifted the blistering hot pans that systematically bake-in poverty wherever “broad based consumption taxes” like GST and VAT have burned their societies and economies. We were consumed by consumption taxes already. Surely, the plot thickened like a batter missing its butter.
But Wait – That First Daddy Blamed the Other Daddy!
On page 2 of that same 2013 Budget, the teacher’s pets’ daddy clawed deeper into the cookie jar – even as he looked away from pouring the batter in the VAT so we could bake more cookies they could devour. He addressed “the Anguilla United Front Minister of Finance and his party” saying, “While they criticise us for the ISL, they had made it clear to HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] in the Fiscal and Economic Recovery Plan, 2009-2011 that was produced during their term, a number of measures that were likely to achieve fiscal balance in 2010 and beyond. These measures included…” Yes. You get a cookie if you guessed it, “Goods and Services Tax”! Both saying the other started it!
When Caught – They All Blamed the Teacher!
With crumbs from chin to chest, they all said the teacher threatened to deprive everybody if they didn’t demand more cookies. We know better. We all saw the teacher’s pet state that the school principal told them they didn’t have to snatch cookies if they tabled alternatives. You might give the teacher a pass, but we’re pretty sure she’s the one who summoned those tough guys to help put the final cookie grab into gear. Crumbs on her mouth, too.
Wipe That 13% off Their Chins, Apologise – and Cap the Cookie Jar!
How did we get so many children with so many crumbs on their chins blaming one another for being the first to sneak cookies? They all could have capped the jar and slapped those wet, sticky hands away at any time. None did. We must call on those with courage and character (and maybe remorse?) to comprehend that choking us with GST while consuming all our cookies is unconscionable!
After wiping their chins of GST crumbs, they should apologise for ever assuming they could go from nibbling on $5 Million to shoving GST down our throats and gorging on $20 Million of our cookies every month – and expect us to happily keep baking so they could keep taking. The first ones to put these last 13% of our cookies back in the jar, drive their own red wagons, help the kids with nothing to do go start their own healthy fruit stands, and put the cap on that jar will win our next school popularity contest – and send Anguilla up to the head of the class!
Repeal GST. Now.
This article reflects cultural and economic issues raised on July 5, 2021, by Ms. Melinda Goddard, Principal of ClienTell Consulting, to the House of Assembly Select Committee on (GST) Goods and Services Tax Public Hearing. References: Budget Address (2013; pps. 2 and 215); Budget Address (2019; p. 8, Revenue Policy Assumptions)
