APIA (Pacnews) — Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele has told parliament that the country must not give the impression that it penalizes entrepreneurs with high taxes.
Parliamentary member Unasa Mesi is calling for business people with big incomes to pay a higher level of tax.
But Tuilaepa says business people create jobs faster than government can and imposing different levels of tax is a thing of the past.
He says the top bracket is presently 29 percent and big businesses already contribute a bigger share of the country’s tax income.
The prime minister says commercial people work hard to make their businesses viable and create jobs.
He says the thought of children growing up in Samoa without jobs is an ongoing concern for the government.
Samoa’s economy grew by 10 percent last year, which local businesses attribute to the government’s economic reform program that began in the late 1990s.
