Member of Parliament George Pantophlet says he still can’t believe what he read this morning in the daily newspaper that government would settle for 10 million or 10% of the profit tax on the sale of American University of the Caribbean (AUC)School of Medicine.
How can you give away more than100 million guilders (some say it is closer to 140 million guilders) at this very difficult time in our economy? This amount would have more than paid the complete Cost of Living Adjustment for 2011 and 2012. Our Budgets need some serious financial injection and government the UP/DP of 2011 gave away the people’s patrimony. The DP/UP Government (they are one and the same) remain consistent in their actions. Education and Health are always on the bottom of the list. We know that they are not going to include 18 or so million guilders contribution to the SZV in the 2013 Budget. What about when the pensioner and the small man want to make an arrangement? What about when the middle class and other businesses want to make an arrangement? They are told that they have to pay within a short period of time with no regard to their financial situation. Businesses have been closed, people have lost their homes and their salaries have been seized because of taxes. He can understand now why this government does not want to write off taxes because the people have to pay for that deal. The Member of Parliament says he would like to see the documentation on this binding agreement. If it is a done deal then why did the Minister of Finance say that it has his attention? The people have a right to know. The Member of Parliament says that there conflicting statements by the former owners of the AUC because on the one hand it mentions and he quotes" The former owners of American University of the Caribbean (AUC) School of medicine had a legally binding "tax settlement agreement with government regarding their owed taxes and therefore have complied with their tax obligations" end of quote. Then further on in the same article it states and he quotes "the former Minister apparently found it appropriate to disclose information on a pending case end of quote. So is the matter resolved or not? What he finds reeks with intimidation is the statement in the article attributed to the former owners and he quotes;"that if the tax authorities had not entered into the tax settlement agreement, the transaction would have been renegotiated in a different form that completely and legally would have exempted the sale from profit tax" end of quote. In this case the Member of Parliament wants to know if the former owners are saying that this sale would have taken place overseas through some off shore Companies? Everyone has to pay their fare share of taxes. That the government at the time would make such agreement begs for some serious questions. I can’t believe it.