How can this money no longer be needed?

From Keith Hairon.

HAVING read that an extra two per cent on security contributions for high earners already approved has been shelved because ‘the money is no longer needed’, I was surprised, to say the least.

As we have just had a two per cent addition to GST and the working age raised to 67 before a pension is available for many low-paid workers, I would have thought that high earners would have been only too pleased to contribute to the general wellbeing of the Island.

I also read that wonderful phrase ‘essential component in maintaining the Island’s international competitiveness’.

I have noted over the years how the finance industry tail has been allowed to wag the Jersey dog. The finance industry located here after the banking changes introduced by Cyril Le Marquand in 1961, because Jersey was a historically low-tax jurisdiction. They were not the cause of the low tax. The taxes in Jersey were low because we did not go down the socialist path of the UK in 1945 and thereafter.

The people of Jersey have benefitted over the past 50 years from the finance industry, but many, myself included, are now wondering whether the rampant selfishness of many living on this Island and involved in that industry is tolerable.

I really think that if low income workers are to be continually asked to carry a financial burden so that the finance industry does not relocate, perhaps we need politicians who are willing to call that bluff and say ‘for all the good you are doing, then go’. I do believe that if the bluff was called we would still have an industry but certainly one more sympathetic to the social wellbeing of this Island.