Ja: Taxing small landowners out of house and home

JAMAICAN LANDOWNERS whose property value falls between $300,000 and $10 million, could face property tax increases of up to 80 per cent this year.

At the same time, owners of properties valued from $50 million to more than $200 million may be spared the increases, despite being the most delinquent property taxpayers, with a 76 per cent delinquency rate in the 2002/2003 financial year

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Tonnerre! This is injustice of the rankest sort. Instead of the Jamaican government oppressing small landowners with oppressive taxes, why don't they enact punitive measurements against the larger ones? Instead, the government prefers to squeeze the marbles of these small landowners because, especially those at the lower end of the scale, they most likely lack the assets to fight government's cowardly refusal to make the delinquent landowners pay.

$10M might sound like a lot, but the exchange rate is $1USD = $60 JDs.