If you were here on September 5th, 2017, you may recall the skies were perfectly clear. The sun shined brilliantly, glittering across the water in every direction. The island was especially green and lush. Only weather maps and Atlantic tropical discussions citing wind speeds, coordinates, times, paths – and the image of a massive red wheel foretold our fate.
In fact, ever since the unprecedented vote on the 29th of July 2021 – it has felt like that calm before the storm. Days of Select Committee Hearings gave ample warnings. But, for most of the last year, the sun kept shining. Sure, we knew of other storms, bad ones, just as we knew of other harsh new taxes, from the Levy to Property tax, hikes in countless fees, and the well-contained impact of Interim Goods Tax – hidden from sight at the ports and buried deep in the prices of everything for 2 years of willful denial.
Preparedness?
For all but those signing petitions and writing letters, the skies seemed clear – before recent clouds gathering under threat of registration penalties and widespread confusion about preparation and compliance. Conflicting information, delayed or unsent clarifications, and paralysing fear of penalties darkened the horizon. This storm’s potential to shred our society and way of life grew ever clearer until the March demanding repeal.
As the economic hurricane loomed within hours, many forgot that the civil service and loan burdens were allowed to compound by deputy and appointed governors, holding none to account, feckless hiring into unfulfilling underemployment, outsourcing boards and bodies that duplicated costs while yet dependent and underfunded, and signing onto years of debt-laden budgets in Exco, as if the nation’s purse was theirs to spend. Never building reserves for rainy days, they might as well have issued permits for shacks, overcrowded by our most vulnerable, the first to fall into poverty from the very storm they brought to our shores.
GST Landfall
Landfall came July 1st – as the GST hurricane now grinds into our lives. Like final weather alerts, the first Regulations landed in May, concealing the storm’s true measure until moments before it arrived – with last minute amendments sharpening its trajectory into 18N by 63W. GST is battering businesses and shattering customer relationships. Restaurateurs are clutching doorknobs and praying the wind won’t leave them homeless from lost customers – patrons and tourists who can’t afford to return. The latter portends a delayed impact to hotels, hunkered down with the taxis and ferries and smallest enterprises sheltering under their beds, cars and vessels until the next thrashing band pushes through. Double-taxed top-up concerns are flying into narrow phone margins. And ANGLEC costs have exploded in showers of sparks like old transformers hit by lightning – forcing higher surcharges, driven by a newly imposed bulk petroleum import fee and global inflation, soon leaving many in darkness, unable to pay bills now flooded by tax.
Regulations: Rainbands of Shredded Debris
Lashed by GST on every transaction, every moment of every day, the Regulations determine every facet of our lives, like rainbands whipping at our walls. Take a simple bottle of water: in addition to the hidden 5% Customs Duty, 1% Customs Surcharge – or the hidden 21% of both if aerated or flavoured, 13% GST is added at the port, and then marked up again for 13% on 13% at the store, give or take a fraction, only if the store is registered and offsetting its tax! According to the Regulations, only “piped” water is free of GST, but as they control those prices, what’s the difference if government revenues are called by another name?
The reg’s exclude car insurance from exclusions: How many can afford GST on insurance before we sell our cars and share rides when too much to bear? The reg’s also exempt local eggs, fish and meat, which means when imported, they attract 11 to 16% of hidden duties and fees, plus 13% at the port and another 13% at the counter. While “exempt” chicken appears to require only the surcharge when imported, it still must be cleared at the port.
So while trying to keep food on the table and lights and phones on in this storm, what if we need a doctor? The reg’s boast prescription “exemptions” – but most still hide 10% Customs Duties and 1% surcharge, with shocking increases in clinic fees to ever have them prescribed.
While hundreds of pages of Customs Regulations still litter our lives, Customs officers are trained on such reg’s at the ports. Now, every grocer, restaurateur, hotelier, broker and merchant must brave that downpour of import duties and surcharges – and spend hours every month buried in debris of nearly 300 items on which they must not charge GST. Thus, exemptions intensify the wailing of the foul rain blown sideways, plastering themselves like tattered leaves onto the walls. Why? They require accounting and reporting whether in or out of the taxes demanded from our patrons – and nearly 70 are listed as “Other”! Business managers fear they may never achieve compliance in the way Customs officers brave such squalls of regulations every day. Instead of serving customers, they waste countless hours dreading a lightning strike of penalties, shutting down the productivity of the nation. In turn, they risk shortfalls in collecting that mountain of $20 million every month, just to shelter only those who brought the storm to our shores.
Remember the Calm before the Storm to Guide Our Future
Even as Hurricane GST howls all around us, littering our lives with broken promises and threatening more downpours of regulations every time they amend this law, we must remember the calm before the storm.
Over 50 years of freedom to start and run a business shaped the joy that was Anguilla. Under a bright, blue sky with but a few lazy clouds, we went about our business without a single regulation dictating what to pay and charge customers to then hand over – beyond being fair, competitive and ensuring value to bring customers back and send friends our way. Receipts stopped at the last item bought or a well-deserved service charge, and no one could be fined or go to jail if they were sent by text, handwritten with a pen, or simply discarded. We paid a lot in hidden taxes, but this hurricane wasn’t humiliating us as unpaid servants to those forcing us to pay their salaries and take food from our tables.
So remember those sunny, clear skies free of the daily debris of countless regulations. We must work to rebuild a sustainable economy and government after Hurricane GST, as we rebuilt after Irma. Let us regain that freedom from GST – or any Sales Tax – forcing our unpaid labour, dictating every moment of our lives, and pushing our vulnerable into poverty. Meet the GST “gap” with alternatives, adjusting only those taxes previously collected by Customs or directly by IRD – and share the sacrifice, spending less over time, paying our debts, and saving for rainy days. We must restore the joy of Anguilla, celebrate the passing of this Hurricane, keep welcoming our tourists – and thriving, proud, strong and free!
Repeal GST. Now.
This article reflects societal impacts and updated economic considerations previously raised in the Anguilla House of Assembly on July 5, 2021, by Ms. Melinda Goddard, Principal of ClienTell Consulting, in a presentation to the Select Committee on (GST) Goods and Service Tax Public Hearing. Duties and Surcharges cited from Customs Act, (R.S.A. C. C169), Integrated Customs Tariff (Amendment) Regulations, 2019 (1 August 2019; 549 pps.) and GST from Goods and Services Tax Act, 2021 (Act No. 18/2021), Goods and Services Tax Regulations, 2022; 26 pps.
