DAVIES
MINISTER OF Finance and Planning, Dr. Omar Davies, yesterday announced a six-month amnesty to allow the estates of persons who died before June 1 to benefit from a new reduced transfer tax rate.
The Finance Minister told Parliament that the Government had come across a legal obstacle that required that transfer tax be paid at the rate in force at the time of an individual's death.
Dr. Davies said the amnesty, which will run from July 1 to December 31 this year, would allow related properties to be transferred at the new rate.
That rate is 7.5 per cent on the balance after the first $100,000 in property value.
The new rate was announced during the Finance Minister's opening budget debate presentation in April, and came into effect on June 1.
"As regards to tax forgone, where taxpayers make use of the amnesty, I exercise my powers ... to wave the tax, which should have been paid," Minister Davies told the House of Representatives yesterday.
REDUCE BACKLOG
The Finance Minister stressed that all transfers left unsettled after the amnesty period ends in December will revert to the tax payable before the new regime comes into force.
The new rate was introduced as part of Government's efforts to reduce the backlog of unsettled estates in the system, and Dr. Davies suggested yesterday that the effort would have failed without the amnesty being put in place.
The backlog, he said, had developed partly because of the expense associated with transferring property.
It was reported last year that Jamaican estates owe $1.2 billion to the Government in transfer tax on death with some 23 summonses having been served to help collect the sum.
