Reduce income tax rate, Polye

Letters, Normal
Source:

The National, Monday 21st November 2011

Treasurer Don Polye will be presenting his first budget tomorrow.
I appeal to him to raise the threshold of personal income tax.
The treasurer has said it will be a record budget and a very balanced budget.
At the moment, the threshold is very low.
Those earning K7,000 per annum and above are taxed.
This means anyone earning K270 per fortnight will have to pay income tax.
The threshold should be raised to at least K20,000.
We are taxed 35% of what we are earning a year.
This means for every K100 we earn, we are taxed K35.
This is too high and is daylight robbery.
This is more than a third of what a poor employee earns.
The working class people are the slaves of this country.
What makes it even more painful is that the taxpayers’ money is squandered by politicians and their cronies.
Something is not very right.
PNG is blessed with abundant resources and the government is collecting huge sums of money from these resources.
We have been having surplus for almost 10 years.
Funds have been diverted to so many trust accounts that their whereabouts are unknown.
On many occasions, funds were diverted to highly dubious pro­jects and nothing meaningful has come out from them.
I appeal to the treasurer to lower the personal income tax rate to less than 25% beginning from the 2012 Budget and beyond.
Mr Treasurer, you will be remembered forever for this good deed.
When the tax is lowered, our take-home pay will be higher and we can use this to improve our living standard.

Dr Jacob Kisomb
Sopa village, Mendi