News Release Office of Senator Janette Millin Young Capitol Building, P.O. Box 1690, St. Thomas, VI 00804 Senator Millin Young Fires Back at Administration’s Financial Team Senator Janette Millin Young on Friday fired back at the deJongh Administration’s Financial Team who through a press conference, she said, may have left the public with the impression that the Legislature has not acted on deficit-reducing measures over the past years. “The Administration’s Financial Team got it wrong,” Millin Young said. “We acted on at least three austerity measures the Administration submitted to the Legislature in 2012 and 2013 by refusing to support the governor’s proposed attack on government employees through wage reductions, as well as pension and health insurance increases.” Millin Young, who serves as the Economic Development, Agriculture and Planning Committee chairperson, said that her position has remained consistent in working to raise revenues rather than penalize one sector of the population verses another. “By attempting to take away night differential pay from our first responders such as police, nurses, and fire employees is to impact their annual salaries,” the senator said. “By increasing matches by government employees to their pension programs and their health insurance premiums also decreases their annual pay. Instead, I have tried to lead the way in urging the Administration to increase their tax collection efforts.” In proposing a measure for increased revenue collection, the senator called upon the Internal Revenue Bureau director to assign employees to investigate and collect the outstanding hotel occupancy taxes from the rental villas, condominium owners, and timeshare units that are rented by agents and owners outside of the territory. Instead of telling the public how she plans on collecting the, at least, $20 million of unpaid hotel occupancy taxes, the IRB director has focused her attention on the vulnerable government employees and fragile businesses by suggesting more tax increases. To aid in this effort, the 30th Legislature included additional budgeted positions to assist in collecting taxes from taxpayers who have avoided paying the same taxes that honest businesses and residents are currently paying, Millin Young said. “The Administration’s attempts to cast blame on the Legislature for their financial mismanagement over the past seven years will not put a dent on our budget woes,” the senator said. “If they are honest, they will speak of the millions of dollars of fund transfers, hundreds of millions of dollars in borrowing authority and bond authorizations given to the governor, and increases to the gross receipts taxes passed into law by the Legislature at the request of the Administration. While, the governor’s financial team continues to blame the Legislature for their own financial failures, I will look past their disingenuous acts and press on to work with them to make changes to the V.I. Code in order to spur economic development that promise to create new businesses and jobs. ###
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:51:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015