THE PRESSURE IS MOUNTING on Government to reverse the tax it imposed on local credit unions as protest letters flow in from credit unions in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
Now head of Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions (CCCU), Ralph Wharton, is in Barbados to help the local umbrella body, the Credit Union League, in its fight against the imposition.
Last month, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler announced during the Estimates Debate in Parliament that a 0.2 per cent tax that was imposed last year on commercial bank assets would be extended from this month to all financial institutions, including credit unions.
But Wharton, who met yesterday with League president Hally Haynes, said he was shocked and surprised that the Barbados Government would tax the credit unions since they represented mainly working class Barbadians.
The CCCU general manager said nowhere in the Caribbean had credit unions faced a tax.
