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MONDAY, JUNE 23, 2025
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Boater backlash on fee increases plus ID install confusion
Opposition fears Bill revives controversial Moorings deal
• Marina chief: ‘We’re nickel and dime-ing everyone to pieces’
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net MARINAS in the northern Bahamas have been hit with multiple cancellations due to a combination of boating industry uproar over new and increased fees plus confusion over planned legal reforms. Peter Maury, the Association of Bahamas Marinas (ABM) president, yesterday confirmed to Tribune Business that members have been calling him to report yacht charters are cancelling their bookings and reservations as far out as the 2025-2026 winter season over uncertainty and concerns relating to the revised cruising and fishing permit moves and associated fees. Asserting that The Bahamas is now “nickel and dime-ing everyone to
PETER MAURY pieces”, he added that the legal and regulatory provisions accompanying the Budget now require visiting boats and yachts to deal with multiple government agencies for anchorage fees if not staying in a marina, their cruising permit and now a separate fishing permit. Mr Maury, speaking to this newspaper after
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THE Opposition voted against the Maritime Revenue Unit Bill over fears it will revive the previouslyabandoned Bahamas Moorings deal under the guise of statute legislation. Adrian White, the St Anne’s MP, confirmed to Tribune Business that the Free National Movement (FNM) has “many concerns” over legislation designed to provide legal standing to the already-established Maritime Revenue Enhancement Unit because some of the powers given to it appear eerily similar to what what Bahamas Moorings was attempting to do. The Bill, which has been reviewed by this newspaper, seeks to give the Unit “the power to provide mooring services for a fee”, as well as install moorings, “set a fee structure” for boats who use them, and conduct “safety inspections of moorings”. Mr White said the aborted Bahamas Moorings deal, and the sudden emergence of this Bill alongside the Budget, were “too close for comfort” for the Opposition. Many of the principals involved in the Bahamas Moorings deal had close ties to government insiders, especially in the Prime Minister’s Office, and Mr White confirmed that - during Thursday night’s 2025-2026
• Votes against Maritime Revenue Unit legislation • Bill gives unit powers to install, levy mooring fee • MP: ‘Too close for comfort’ after deal abandoned Budget wrap-up - the Opposition voted against both the Maritime Revenue Unit Bill as well as the VAT (Amendment) Bill 2025 on several grounds. “There are a number of responsibilities that are being imposed that could be handled in the private sector,” the St Anne’s MP argued of the Maritime Revenue Bill. “The primary concerns are they are requiring the Royal Bahamas Police Force and Royal Bahamas Defence Force to have responsibility for the collection of waste from vessels as well as monitor fishing.
ADRIAN WHITE MP “They will otherwise carry out services Bahamian businesses in the private sector, especially in the Family Islands, could be attracted to as commercial opportunities to participate in themselves.” It is unclear why the Bill’s section five empowers a unit, otherwise tasked with law and revenue enforcement, to engage in commercial activities - moorings and waste disposal - that could be left to the private sector. However, Mr White added that the Opposition’s other main worry was that the Maritime Revenue Unit Bill
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‘Huge relief’ as the Gov’t drops ‘void’ coveyances By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net ATTORNEYS have branded the Government’s abandoning of legal reforms that would have treated unrecorded real estate deals as “void” as “a huge relief”. Wayne Munroe, leader of government business in the House of Assembly, told Tribune Business that instead of pursuing such changes to the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act it had elected to amend the VAT Act to crack down on the evasion/avoidance
of $100m on real estate transactions. He also confirmed that the compliance burden, and duty to ensure all due VAT is paid within the stipulated 180-day target timeline, is being spread among all parties involved in property and land transactions - the buyer and seller, their respective attorneys, and any realtors who are involved. The Government, though, has retained the amendment requiring realtors to notify the Department of Inland Revenue of all transactions,
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FNM to slash yacht tax rate ‘highest in Caribbean-Atlantic’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Opposition yesterday pledged to slash a yacht charter tax rate, which the industry has branded “the highest in the CaribbeanAtlantic region”, by more than 70 percent in percentage terms if elected. Shanendon Cartwright, the FNM’s deputy leader, promised to reverse a VAT levy imposed by the Davis administration on foreign yacht charters in the 2022-2023 Budget - that he asserts is responsible for
causing “nearly half our market share” to disappear. And his stance has been backed by a group of charter yacht owners and managers who, in a recent position paper submitted to the Government, revealed that the morethan-tripling of the tax rate - from 4 percent to 14 percent - via VAT’s imposition has “driven many vessels elsewhere, shrinking a once-growing tourism and marine services sector”. The Bahamas Charter Yacht Owners and
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