Following what the Cayman New Service (CNS) reports had been an uneventful, "peaceful protest" on Monday night, when Cayman Islands premier McKeeva Bush had been expected to address the public about the proposed tax, a group of opponents to the tax plan now intends to stage another demonstration next Monday evening, according toa CNS report posted last night, which quotes Nick Pitman, the anti-expat-tax group’s founder.
In the end, Bush cancelled his initial meeting, and has now rescheduled it for tonight, in his own constituency on Grand Cayman Island. Here, the CNS report notes, he "will be hoping that he can round up enough of his own supporters" to undermine the growing and increasingly visible opposition.
The tax-opposing group had originally planned to demonstrate tonight rather than next Monday, to coincide, again, with the premier’s planned talk, but decided against this plan in order "to send a clear message that the group is about peaceful protest and collaboration and not, as implied by the premier, disruption", the CNS report says.
Pitman is described by the CNS report as a social media expert, and has mobilised opposition in the Caymans to the expat tax plan through a Facebook group called Caymanians and Expats United Against Taxation, which already has more than 10,000 members. The total population of the Cayman Islands is only around 55,000.
Bush, who is struggling to balance the Cayman Islands financial crisis-battered battered books and respond to UK Government calls for it to sort out its finances, is presenting the tax as an alternative to cutting civil service jobs. He is avoiding calling it a “tax”, preferring to refer to it as a “community enhancement fee” aimed at preserving at least 500 island jobs.
Meantime, employees who work for the Cayman Islands civil service, who have been warned that the government plans to cut their benefits as part of its efforts to stablise the island’s finances,have hit out at the proposals, and the head of a government workers’ association suggested that the benefit cuts, as proposed, could be illegal.
As reported, the debate was sparked last week after Bush announced that the government would look to introduce a 10% payroll tax for foreigners who hold permits allowing them to work in the islands, if they earned more than $20,000 a year (£12,735, €16,305).
Bush took office in November 2009, and has spent most of his time as prime minister attempting to keep the Cayman Islands afloat financially, as it has been hit by the global economic downturn, which has seen many financial services companies operating there, such as hedge funds, struggle, and its tourism business falter.
Because the Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory, the UK Government has a say in its affairs. And increasingly, it has called on the jurisdicition to move away from its dependence on its tax haven model with the introduction of some direct taxes, and by diversifying its economy.
