The economy of St. Vincent and the Grenadines performed better in almost every area during the first nine months of 2014, compared to the same period in 2013.
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dr. Ralph Gonsalves told reporters on Monday that total revenue and grants has increased 5 per cent from EC$383.7 million in 2013 to EC$405.9 million in 2014.
Current revenue was up almost 10 per cent from EC$341 million to EC4375.2 million.
Total expenditure also increased, moving from EC$421 million to EC$444.2 million, while recurrent expenditure also saw a year-on-year increase from EC$358.5 million to EC$379.2 million.
Gonsalves said that during the period under review, capital expenditure moved from EC$62.5 million in 2013 to EC$65 million in 2014.
And while the current balance was still a deficit, that deficit had decreased from EC$17.4 million during the first nine months of 2013 to a deficit of EC$4 million during the corresponding period of 2014.
The overall balance also increased slightly, moving from EC$37.3 million to EC$38 million.
Gonsalves said there was an increase in most categories of taxes, saying that this represents economic growth and better collection.
Taxes on income and profits, which includes personal income taxes, companies tax and withholding taxes, increased from EC$77.6 million to EC$83.3 million.
Taxes on properties increased from EC$2.34 million to EC$2.8 million.
Gonsalves said this does not mean that persons have a higher property tax burden after the reform of the property tax law.
“It is that the net has been spread wider, because there were a lot of people who were not on the tax roll,” he said.
Taxes on domestic collections increased by 2.6 per cent, while domestic VAT had increased by 7.5 per cent, from EC$48.37 million to EC$52.01 million.
“Some of that is because of the natural increase in goods, but some of it also is better collection and an uptick in economic activity.
He said while citizens ask what the government is doing about poor state of the nation’s roads, for taxes on vehicles, the government collected EC$9 million plus for all of 2013, and expect to collect just over EC$10 million this year.
At the end of September 2014, the government had collected EC$7.99 million, an increase of 4.6 per cent over the same period of 2013, when EC$7.6 million was collected.
Gonsalves said there is 500 miles of motorable road in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and it costs about EC$1 million to repair a mile of road.
Government taxes are up but the money in the hands of the people has not, thus not contributing to the well being of the general public. If the money doesn’t see the streets it doesn’t serve the general economic structure of the society. This contributes to a great spread between the classes and encourages more crime from desperate people who’s economic situation can be described as nothing less than sad. If the private sector doesn’t have customers the burden again shifts back to the government, who are by definition “the people”.
All I have to say is……….HAHAHA!!….good joke PM.
well if it has shown improvements why are so many young people still without jobs??????
I suggest that the $83 million in income and other taxes reported by the PM represents less than half taxes actually owed but not collected.
If I am wrong, the PM should correct me by telling us what the actual figures are and what he and his government are doing to collect tax arrears and prosecute tax evaders.
I also suggest that if we were rigorous in collecting taxes we could cut the VAT by half or more.
Wow! this man has such a way with figures, he is quite magical.
EVERY CONTRY DI WRLD HAV A PROBLEM WIT CRIMEgov can only creat so much jobs.wat vincies need to do is get up and do tings for demselves.bro if u go after dose dat r not paying dere taxes.dey wud say its a conspiracy.dey frget taxes run a country.svg is in good hands.dere is no one betta rite now.