A class squeezed in between

IN my last article, I mentioned some of the more generous wage subsidy schemes, some to the tune of over 80 percent of the normal wages paid, which were rolled out by more developed countries to shore up primarily their small and medium enterprises (SMEs), something which the SME counterparts in most developing countries could only cringe at in envy, as these latter SMEs are often summarily though subtly made to shoulder the main burden of muddling their respective socio-economies through these difficult pandemic times, with lockdowns and curfews and the like only easing up very recently.

Some have pointed out that much higher tax rates, some well over 80 percent for the top earners and often over 50 percent even for the average taxpayers, individuals or businesses, were typically the normal tax regimes in these more developed countries.