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TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2023
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More ‘operations’ planned for tax dodger crackdown • ‘Shaking the trees’: All islands to be targeted • Business Licence filings key to spark probes • Authorities targeting $4m Briland tax arrears
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE AUTHORITIES are planning “several operations” throughout The Bahamas targeting other suspected tax delinquents, the Ministry of Finance’s top official revealed last night, while their Harbour Island sweep is still not finished. Simon Wilson, the financial secretary, confirmed to Tribune Business that further raids and asset seizures are being readied by the Department of Inland
Revenue, assisted by the police and other agencies, as a wellplaced source - speaking on condition of anonymity - suggested the Government believes it can recover $4m in outstanding tax arrears from its Harbour Island crackdown alone. While declining to confirm or provide numbers, Mr Wilson said the Ministry of Finance and Department of Inland Revenue are “shaking the trees a bit more” through a more aggressive enforcement approach against tax avoidance and evasion by
companies over VAT and Business Licence fee payments. Confirming that “quite a bit” of its investigation has been triggered by suspicious Business Licence filings, with some companies reporting turnover figures that are hugely inconsistent with their known level of commercial activity, he told this newspaper that the seizure of goods, corporate records and other assets was “not a step we take lightly” and is only undertaken following the necessary probe and obtaining of a court Order.
Gas retailers: ‘Never been so desperate’ due to OPEC slash By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIAN petroleum retailers yesterday said “it’s never been so desperate” with a surprise production cut by the major oil producing countries making their need for a margin increase even more urgent. Vasco Bastian, the Bahamas Petroleum Retailers Association (BPRA) vice-president, told Tribune Business the sector’s plight has “become even more worrisome” after the announcement by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel sent oil prices back above the $80
• Say oil price jump makes plight 'more worrisome' • And resolution meeting with PM even more urgent • Consumers warned to brace for fresh pump rises mark on the major crude indices. And, with increased global demand set to impose further pricing pressures ahead of the summer months, when households in the US and Europe hit the roads during their annual vacations, he warned that local gas station operators will once again face the prospect of having to pay
more to purchase the same quantity of fuel. This, dealers say, will result in increased overdraft and credit card fees that they must pay from price-controlled fixed margins that are already insufficient to absorb a multitude of ever-increasing costs, thus plunging many into a deeper lossmaking position. Mr Bastian and others said
this scenario had made a second promised meeting with Philip Davis KC and his officials to resolve their calls for a margin increase even more urgent. Speaking after the OPEC+ group, which includes the likes of Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq, announced they will cut combined production by one million barrels per day or 3.7 percent of global demand, Mr Bastian told this newspaper: “That definitely, definitely would have a huge impact. It’s become even more worrisome with that type of action taken by OPEC. “It will have a devastating impact on our industry and we cannot
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Cable: URCA’s 23% budget rise ‘assault on our finances’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net CABLE Bahamas has blasted the 23 percent hike in the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority’s (URCA) 2023 budget as “an assault on the finances” of itself and other communications operators who will pay for it. The BISX-listed communications provider, in
its response to the regulator’s draft 2023 annual plan, proclaimed itself “astounded” by the magnitude of the $1.26m year-over-year increase and demanded that URCA slash this jump by more than 50 percent in percentage terms. Urging URCA to instead opt for a 5-10 percent budget increase, Cable Bahamas and its Aliv mobile affiliate said the days of communications
operators being “a ‘cash cow’” were long over yet itself and the likes of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) are being expected to finance the rise via increased licence fees despite facing a variety of other cost and investment pressures. Cable Bahamas suggested the situation also exposed the folly of amending the URCA Act, the regulator’s governing legislation, which
previously allowed it to retain any excess licence fees above those used to finance its budgeted operations and apply them to costs incurred in future years. However, the Act was reformed more than a decade ago, on July 1, 2013, to require that such sums instead be transferred to the Government’s Consolidated Fund to cover its
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Growth to ‘moderate’ as COVID revival near end By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Central Bank yesterday reaffirmed that The Bahamas’ economic growth rate will “moderate as the recovery from COVID-19 becomes more complete” with February’s air visitor arrivals just 2.5 percent off pre-pandemic pace. Unveiling its report on February 2023’s economic
developments, the regulator said the annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate will start to normalise and return to more traditional levels with this nation having regained much of the economic output lost to COVID. “The domestic economy is expected to sustain its growth trajectory in 2023, supported by a strong recovery in the tourism sector. The pace of
expansion is expected to moderate, however, as the recovery from COVID- 19 becomes more complete,” the Central Bank said, adding that unemployment levels were expected to remain above pre-pandemic numbers despite gains in construction and tourism.” Its assessment comes immediately after the Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) unveiled data showing
2022’s real gross domestic product (GDP) was slightly higher than that for the last COVID-free year of 2019. It added that economic activity last year expanded by 11.9 percent on a nominal basis and some 14.4 percent in real terms “as business activity returned to pre-COVID 19 levels”. The real GDP measurement, which strips
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SIMON WILSON Asked whether last week’s Briland raids, which targeted Conch & Coconut and Andre’s Rentals, were intended to send a warning signal to other deadbeat taxpayers, Mr Wilson replied: “It will have a demonstrative effect, but the reality is that we have to do more. We have several operations
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Sir Franklyn: Quieting Titles ‘licence to thief’ By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net ARAWAK Homes chairman yesterday urged The Bahamas to embrace a system of registered land as he warned that the Quieting Titles Act has become “a licence to thief”. Sir Franklyn Wilson, who also heads Sunshine Holdings, told the University of The Bahamas (UOB) Business Week seminar that here is “a lot of work to do” in creating better land policy in The Bahamas. He described the “first problem” as proving proper title to a property, and the second as protecting it from people that are trying to “steal it”. “There’s something that’s been on our books called the Quieting Titles Act that is a licence to thief,” he argued. “In our country, somewhere and at some time, we must develop some system of land registration such that people know this is my land, it’s more difficult for people to
SIR FRANKLYN WILSON steal it and it becomes more complicated.” Sir Franklyn’s concerns are nothing new, but the Government and policymaker level has thus far been unwilling to enact serious reform. Tribune Business has reported on several Quieting Titles Act abuses in recent years, detailing how the law has been used as a fraudulent tool to commit real estate theft. A typical abuse is for persons seeking a Certificate of Title from the Supreme Court not to notify others, who may have an interest in
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