Above: Finance Minister Audley Shaw (JIS Photo)
Jamaica is looking to instill a culture of tax compliance in the country, in response to what Finance Minister Audley Shaw called an “unacceptably low” level of tax payments. “There are people who willfully evade taxes, including a lot of businesses in downtown Kingston, and a lot of businesses that are springing up across Jamaica,” he said. “You cannot have a civilised economy going forward, with all of the demands that are placed upon government to find the appropriate resources for all of the critical neds, but with a whole set of people feeling that ‘taxes are not for me.'”
–Jamaica Information Service