Economist: Property Tax is not bias, but...

ECONOMIST Indera Sagewan-Alli disagrees with the claim by surgeon Dr Dilip Dan at a recent Maha Sabha event that the Property Tax targets East Indians, but overall she urged the Government to not yet introduce the tax on a population already financially-stressed. Dan had said East Indians had toiled and saved to buy their properties rather than squandering their earnings.

As proof that the tax was not targeting East Indians, Sagewan-Alli said the former People’s Partnership government itself had planned to bring back such a land/property-based tax. “The former minister of finance (Larry Howai) is on record as having said that several times.”

While she said it may be a fact that East Indians do own a lot of property and so may be more impacted than other groups by the property tax, she did not see anything sinister. Sagewan-Alli said the country had such a tax previously, until axed even as it is now set to be re-introduced.

She said, “So I don’t think there is any ethnic objective. I don’t believe there is any hidden agenda by the Government to target East Indians.”

Sagewan-Alli however said a separate conversation is needed on how the property tax will impact people by way of their ability to pay.

“People can’t afford to pay it now at all.” She said most people, especially lower- and middle-income workers, are on a fixed income and have already been burdened by the tightening of the GATE grant and partial removal of the fuel subsidy. Sagewan-Alli also mulled whether people paid property tax, would they get a corresponding rise in the level of services. She said the Government should look at its own role in revitalising the economy, instead of promoting the property tax. She was glad that so far indications from Minister in the Ministry of Finance Allyson West were that the property tax will not imposed retroactively for two years, even as Sagewan-Alli advised it not even be enacted at all.