This week 200 Isle of Man business owners or operators who are members of the Island’s Chamber of Commerce voted overwhelmingly against the Isle of Man’s Budget and publicly expressed absolutely no confidence in the Islands tax strategy and its Council of Ministers. Many individual taxpayers are also very concerned about the impact of increased personal income taxes with the introduction of a new higher rate of income tax (an effective 10% increase in the Islands normal rate of income tax). But this new high rate of tax does not apply to traditional high earning taxpayers as it might in other jurisdictions but essentially to most Island residents earning over the Islands living wage.

Consequently the Isle of Man must now have one of the lowest applying “high” rates of tax in the Western hemisphere as its high rate of tax now applies to almost every resident. At the same time our budget did not change the Income Tax Cap for the super rich in any way (not even increasing it by the rate of Manx inflation). So Tynwald has essentially passed a budget that rewards the super rich whilst increasing the tax burden on most other income groups during a cost of living crisis. 

Under the Council of Ministers Act 1990 Tynwald can pass a vote of "no confidence in the Council of Ministers" which means that under Section 2 of this Act the Islands Chief Minister automatically goes out of office upon a successful vote, as does the Islands entire Council of Ministers (effectively the Islands entire Tynwald Cabinet). Despite a lot of empty noise and posturing there does not seem to be one Member of Tynwald in the Island who is prepared to call this vote (which would require the support of at least 13 MHKs in order to be successful) or to publicly represent public opinion that this was a bad budget for most Island residents. This is despite clear public feedback from businesses and individuals that they have no confidence in this budget or the current House. If you support the calling of a vote of no confidence in the Council of Ministers to test public opinion then hopefully one of our highly paid MHKs might actually do something about it.

Please register your vote here.