Persons employed with the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will receive a salary increase of 7 percent over the next three years \u2013 2023, 2024, and 2025 as the economy is projected to improve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The workers\u2019 unions made the announcement recently, but the official announcement was made today (September 22) at a press conference by Finance Minister \u2013 Camillo Gonsalves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Gonsalves also announced the government\u2019s plans to decrease personal and corporate income taxes and the income tax threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe long-standing position of the government is that we want to bring our income tax rate down into the mid-20\u2019s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope as things improve, we can revisit it again in a couple years,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, the income tax threshold is also being changed to benefit workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The finance minister said: \u201cat the other end, your tax threshold which is how much money you make that is tax free, before the government starts taxing you is going from $20,000 to $22,000. So, before, if you make $19,000, you didn\u2019t pay income tax. Once you cross $20,000, they started to tax any money over $20,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow, the threshold is going up to $22,000,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Gonsalves said this threshold was at $12,000 when the ULP took office in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the moving of the threshold, \u201cwill mean that many many workers in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will not pay income tax because their salary is below $1,800 per month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo if you make under $1,800 per month, you\u2019re not going to pay income tax with this increase,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tax relief package will take effect next year \u2013 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: \u201cThe tax relief package is very important when considering exactly how much more money somebody is going to take home in their pocket\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just that your salary is going up, it\u2019s that your taxes are going down. So, you\u2019re going to save a little money when your taxes go down, and you\u2019re going to make a little money when your salaries go up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When said when you add those two things together, you\u2019re ending up beyond 2.5 percent, referring to the planned increase for 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the salary increases combined with the income tax reductions will amount to a 4 percent increase in take home pay for some workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source : One News SVG <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Persons employed with the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will receive a salary increase of 7 percent over the next three years \u2013 2023, 2024, and 2025 as the economy is projected to improve. The workers\u2019 unions made the announcement recently, but the official announcement was made today (September 22) at a press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":30499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"\n