This is an open letter to Don Wehby, minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.

Dear Sir,

A headline appeared for an article in the Business Observer dated February 14, 2001, on page 3B, stating 'Investment income liable for NHT (National Housing Trust), but agency will not go after tax'.

To support this headline, the rate schedule in the NHT Act specifies that self-employed persons should pay three per cent of their 'earnings', referred to as wages. Then the act defines 'earnings' as all statutory income (which includes investment income) computed pursuant (to) the Income Tax Act. This legal interplay of the word 'earnings' becomes inconsistent with section 18 of the Constitution of Jamaica for the compulsory acquisition of property of any kind.

This means that the NHT Act is not permitted by the Constitution to go after the tax, as the NHT Act first has to dictate that the investments from which the liability of investment income is taken is a self-employed occupation and this is unconstitutional.

Benefit investors

The merger of the payroll tax acts will benefit investors by releasing them from queries such as this example: "Please confirm that you are engaged in the occupation of investment monies (investor) which yield monetary returns in the form of interest or otherwise."

The good news is that the NHT Act will have to become a payroll tax act, as originally announced in Parliament in 1975, or else it cannot be legally merged with other payroll tax acts.

I am, etc.,

GEOFFREY HANNA

Kingston