There is hidden Jamaican money throughout the Jamaican financial system! I kid you not. NIS has disablility assistance and relief with doctor signed forms, there are widow’s benefits like funeral costs, they may also hold the only key to your getting pension money from places you worked and forgot or are closed down. Let’s say the company you worked at closed and you didn’t get your NIS and NHT forms…the closed company is supposed to have handed your data over to NIS ….then again, if they didn’t ‘yu salt’….but if they did you can use it towards getting govt pension (however small) and towards getting NHT refunds. As you leave/retire from each company make sure you get your NHT & NIS data for pension purposes, i.e., your NHT letters, keep all your pay slips and P24s back ’till you were 2 yrs old’ (just kidding but the 7 yr rule DOES NOT HOLD HERE!) …as the tax man and HR lady told me….it can take ‘ a long time’ and you don’t have a long time to wait for income when you retire… Did you know NIS is in surplus because people aren’t claiming?! And…they’re using to money to buy up overseas property rather than increase ‘the smalls’ we get…..sad…but every ‘mickle mek a muckle’..when it comes to your pensions…
Find out if your business is exempt from GCT transactions. Call the ‘tax specialists’ (official name) at the Ocean Blvd dept of the Tax Office….(bet you didn’t even know this section existed, these are the guys that know every last angle and loophole of Jamaican taxes!!!)