Government has increased property taxes to generate revenue for community services such as garbage collection, says Minister in the Ministry of Finance Mariano Browne.

’The purpose of the property tax is to provide a revenue source for the deployment of public goods such as garbage collection, street cleaning and road maintenance, street lighting, fire services, maintenance of recreational parks and other community services. These taxes will support the activities of Local Government bodies,’ Browne said at yesterday’s Senate sitting where he piloted the 2009/2010 national budget for debate.

Browne defended the hike in property taxes, saying the current system was antiquated and that Government was developing a Property Tax Information System to employ modern technology using a single platform to assess all properties and collect taxes via a harmonised tax regime under the management of a single assessment agency and a single collection agency to ensure consistency.

Opposition Senator Wade Mark was unforgiving, he said this move will further erode the pockets of the people and will usher in increases in rent, cost of living and even water bills.

’This property tax in the hands of an abusive Government could lead to segregation of communities and the development of ghettos. The divide between the rich and the poor would be consolidated and further concretised,’ he said.

’WASA bills are also based on an annual rateable value. As such customers could witness a ten-fold rise in their WASA bills when the new assessment and valuation exercise has been conducted by the Valuation Division. Would citizens be asked to finance WASA’s huge deficit of over $2.1 billion through the imposition of new water rates?’ questioned Mark.