While out canvassing recently, a Bermudian couple asked us to come in and have a conversation with them about the hikes in the land tax proposed by finance minister Bob Richards the week before Christmas.

The husband presented a spreadsheet that showed persons such as themselves with a house of the lowest value to be hit with a 200 per cent increase in their land tax, with payable rates increasing from 0.6 per cent to 1.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, persons with the highest values were to experience only an 8.7 per cent increase in land tax, with their payable rates increasing from 23 per cent to 25 per cent.

This contradicted the following statement by the Minister of Finance:

“ ... Mr Speaker, we have aimed to deliver an adjustment in land tax rates that is fair to all sectors of the real estate market. ... and believe that the rate increases are both equitable and fair.” — House of Assembly, December 16, 2015

They then pulled out a Royal Gazette article dated December 16, highlighting Mr Richards’s House of Assembly announcement that the One Bermuda Alliance had committed to an “unconditional government guarantee” for West End Development Corporation’s reclamation project at South Basin, Dockyard. This is the property that will be used to host the America’s Cup. Holding the notice of increased land tax in one hand and the news of the $39 million guarantee going towards the America’s Cup in the other, the wife asked: “Why does it feel as if ordinary, hard-working Bermudians, who are struggling to make ends meet, are now being hit with increases in taxes to pay for a sport for the wealthy?”

Before we left, the wife posed two more questions:

• “If this is about equality and fairness why were wealthy folks only having an 8.7 per cent increase in their land tax bill, while working-class persons’ land tax increases will be up to 200 per cent?

• If the recession was truly over as the Premier had stated, why are working-class Bermudians now being hit with increased land taxes?