THE EDITOR, Sir:

The NIS Act 1966, the NHT Act 1976, and the Education Tax Act 1983/6 were all authorised by Parliament to be funded only from a person's "earnings" or "earned income" which is "earned" from employment or self-employment being income which is worked for and not from investment income which is not worked for.

However, the incredible number of processes from the Cabinet, the ministry, the Attorney-Generals Department, the Parliament, public scrutiny, and the Gazette all failed to enact what was authorised by Parliament.

The big questions are how and why did the definition of earnings deviate from what Parliament authorised it to be? Instead of being earnings from employment or self-employment, earnings is defined under the NIS Act, the NHT Act, and the Education Tax Act as - "earnings mean, in relation to any person, the statutory income computed pursuant to the Income Tax Act".

No violation

The definition converts the Payroll Tax Acts into Income Tax Acts as all income is made taxable in all these acts. Therefore, instead of merging just the Payroll Tax Acts, all Jamaica's tax acts could be merged as all our tax acts carry the same liabilities. If this was done the personal savings of an individual would not be treated by the Payroll Tax Acts as a self-employed gainful occupation but simply as income, and this would no longer violate section 18 of the Constitution of Jamaica for the regulating of the compulsory acquisition of property.

I am, etc.,

GEOFFREY R. HANNA

Kingston 6