THE EDITOR, Sir:
Almost unseen amid the well publicised stories relating to the taximen protests in today's (Jan 7) newspaper, was a small article about a missing 83-year-old Manchester farmer who was found in a pit. I believe that this critical item of news should also have been a front-page story with an appropriate footnote to our Government policymakers who it seems have no regard for the well-being of all our people.
It is alleged that on receipt of his land tax assessment, Mr. Lewis left home to seek audience with a Justice of the Peace and local pastor to discuss what he thought was the government's intent to rob him of his land. The article struck a very sensitive nerve because had it not been for the grace of God my next of kin could have been like Mr. Lewis, as consequent upon the receipt of our own assessment he almost had an apoplexy because of the whopping valuation increase of 889 per cent.
Our government has justifiable reasons to demand taxes, but increases should be gradual and reasonable because gigantic increases will attract scepticism, opposition and non-adherence to the law. I have yet to meet a rural land owner who is not now fearful of the new taxes. For some of us there is not much that can be produced to offset even a 100 per cent increase and the factor of praedial larceny must be remembered and included in all calculations.
The Notice of Valuation stipulates that if there are dissatisfactions with any of the already four prescribed reasons for objection to the value of the land, the property tax must be paid on 75 per cent of the valuation assessed by the Commissioner of Land or the property owner, (whichever is the greater). This travesty is reason enough to send any farmer to either madhouse or poorhouse because unlike the lands in Kingston and St. Andrew where the owners can readily improve their land value, agricultural lands have minimal flexibility and options.
I sincerely hope that there is nobody among us who will view Mr. Lewis' predicament as a joke because a great post-emancipation fear among the peasantry is the loss of his land. I understand the grief and so I empathise with every rural family now faced with this very oppressive land tax millstone.
I am, etc.,
SONIA CHRISTIE
Stewart Town
Trelawny
