Tax control vs tax command

THE EDITOR: Property tax and “market assessment” in the form being implemented under the Property Tax Act is the norm in the province of Ontario, Canada, for public funding for schools; where the taxpayer himself allocates the revenue by deciding which school system his tax payments will fund. The Ontario arrangement means that schools are always fully funded and each school and the government are under a triple accountability to local government, school board and parents.

That was not done for TT; instead the Government has sought to make the tax part of its general revenues. This is unfortunate since it continues the pattern where the Government lives in a world of its own making and monopoly that somehow can never return value for money to taxpayers who are treated as residing in never-never land.

The Ontario regime also has an appeal tribunal allowing the taxpayer to challenge market assessments. One good way to set up such a tribunal is to make it the creature of the taxpayer where the burden is on the assessor to prove the correct valuation and methodology, as one or both of these could be off.

In the present mix-up with “suspension” of the tax, the Finance Minister is speaking as if he has the power to direct the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR). In fact he does not. The BIR, an independent authority, has discretion to operate tax laws. It may take notice of particular indications from the minister but it is obliged to keep to the law.

So, for example, if the law is not fully implemented or in some respect is not complete and certain, the BIR can indeed suspend collection of the tax until the situation is rectified in law. The BIR is not an entity under the control of the minister the way the general registry can be directed by the Attorney General. But more interesting than all that, the minister telling us about colonial ordinances amounts to relating a nice story and totally dodging all meaningful issues.

E GALY

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