Saturday, May 8, 2010

50% Increase In Cell Phone Tax - Anti-Youth

..........................
Posted by at

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought it was 5 and not 50%.

May 8, 2010 at 10:38 AM
Anonymous said...

Who's runnin the tax department, OBAMA???

May 8, 2010 at 1:32 PM
Anonymous said...

pay the taxes already. Everybody want everything but nobody wants to pay for it

May 8, 2010 at 4:40 PM
Anonymous said...

Ashame for the government. The ministers are getting free house, free vehicle,free phone free everything,now they are saying the economy is hard they have to raise money by raising TAXES on the poor people of St. Lucia. What's about all the money Taiwan is given? Is it being pocketed by Guy Joseph, Rufus Bousquet and the others?

May 8, 2010 at 5:03 PM
Zeigy said...

You hear the nonsense the NYC is spewing? So many issues you are all silent on but when it becomes harder to keep renewing your prepaid blackberry data plan you crying?

Why don't you advocate to get Cadet Corps in all secondary schools to teach the youth about national security and respect for our men and women in uniform so that they can become disciplined and teach their parents?

May 9, 2010 at 10:59 AM
Anonymous said...

Zeigy, you have a lot of ideas, why don"t you help? voluntary you services just as the young people are doing in the NYC. You are a typical St Lucian sit on the sideline and criticize and wanting others to do everything for you all. If it is so easy as you said offer yourself, NYC is a voluntary organization, it is open to all.

May 9, 2010 at 3:04 PM
Anonymous said...

Why not a tax hike on things like alcohol and cigarets instead of cell phones. These things cause more harm, and are no necessities. On the other hand, cell phones have become necessities.

May 9, 2010 at 10:28 PM
Anonymous said...

Stupid article. Is there anyone dumb enough to believe that young people use their cell phones primarily for work and other vital purposes? I'm a young person and I certainly don't, and neither does any other young person I know.

May 10, 2010 at 7:59 AM
Anonymous said...

What is your point? It true that people do not use their phone only for work, important and serious messages but that does not under score the important of a cell phone. Think about it, i will give you one example, one day i was driving in St lucia, i got myself involved in an accident, i had to knock on some stranger door to ask them to use their phone to make a call for help, thus the importance of a cell phone. That is only one, i can think of many others. ok. A cell phone is very necessary.

May 10, 2010 at 10:29 AM
Zeigy said...

"Zeigy, you have a lot of ideas, why don"t you help? voluntary you services just as the young people are doing in the NYC. You are a typical St Lucian sit on the sideline and criticize and wanting others to do everything for you all. If it is so easy as you said offer yourself, NYC is a voluntary organization, it is open to all."

As a matter of fact Anon, I do intend to get involved in the NYC because I do not want to be one of those who sit on the sidelines and be everybody's judge and jury. Some of the people who go for these positions end up getting dazzled by the spotlight and I aim to change that.

May 10, 2010 at 10:58 AM
Anonymous said...

I am happy for you Zeigy, i hope you take the youth to the glory land, good luck.

May 10, 2010 at 1:59 PM
Anonymous said...

What percentage of the cellphone minutes is used by the typical young person for the reasons highlighted in the article, that is for job related issues, to communicate with the parents or for emergencies. It is likely to very a pretty low percentage and hence the impact of this tax on the use cases described in the article is likely to be very limited.

While a cellphone is pretty important in today's society, 10-15 years ago almost no one had a cellphone and society still functioned pretty well.

Another question that would be interesting to answer, is what percentage of income is spent on cellphone bills by young people. Alot of the cellphone cost is probably discretionary spending and certainly not essential. It always me how much people use their cellphone in St. Lucia given that cellphone rates are not exactly that cheap in St. Lucia.

May 10, 2010 at 7:22 PM
Zeigy said...

Cell phone technology just seems to be taking off in developing countries. That's how that Mexican made his billions,Carlos Slim Helú. He knows how poor people lack discretion in their spending and made a gold mine, heck he made a gold mountain, investing in mobile technology.

I was checking my cell phone expenditure for last month and I'm so ashamed at how much money I put into that phone for April considering it was only a third of that figure the previous month. That demonstrates how easy it is to blow your money on phone credit if you aren't watching your wallet.

May 10, 2010 at 8:27 PM
Anonymous said...

Re Zeigy,

I agree with you that alot of people may not know exactly how much they spend on cellphone especially since there may not be one final bill at the end of month which indicates that.
What percentage of income do you think the average St. Lucian spends on cellphone costs (both for usage and product costs)? Is it 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%?

And then what percentage of income is an appropriate amount?

May 11, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Zeigy said...

It's tough to say anon. Any figure I offer is speculative but if the statement by the NYC is anything to go by, the youth demographic have misplaced priorities.

An appropriate level of expenditure on cell phones would have to be as low as one can manage. Every time you use it, you are paying for a convenience which is a cost that could have gone to some other activity, such as a savings plan or investment. It is not unlike paying for a bottle of water when you could have just carried a reusable plastic bottle from home.

It also depends on how active you want your social life to be. The important thing is to keep asking yourself if you can afford this.

May 11, 2010 at 7:50 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)