Christopher Lowe
I went to renew my driver’s license today, for the 3 year term, but the surly disinterested staffer was no surprise, nor the subject of this piece.
Another Gent, possibly a winter resident, was also renewing his Bahamian Drivers License, which apparently had expired a couple years before.
Perhaps he had been out of the Bahamas for a few years, perhaps he had no car for awhile, and maybe he had been driving without!
What got me was the clerk saying that he had to pay for all the years that had lapsed!!
I have seen this at the Port Department also, lapsed boat registrations, even levied on new owners when the old owner had not renewed.
This has got to be unjust, for any number of obvious reasons.
Boat parked for years on land will do for a start, and in either licensing scenario, if the person drove without, or the boat was used unregistered, it would carry a penalty if one was apprehended doing without.
There is an exception I suppose, that of business license fees un paid where the company was an ongoing concern.
But, what if it was closed for a period of a year, two or three?
People accept these arbitrary conditions I suppose, because at the end of the day, what recourse does an ordinary citizen have??
Where would you find a Civil servant of sufficient authority or legal wherewithal interested enough to hear ones protest?
It is the simple things like this, that we are faced with day by day, that are killing the country by degree, subjugating the citizens under rule of idiocy, certainly not under the rule of law.
Seems like common sense is all gone for sure. I feel certain that in a lot of cases, the lights are on but no one is at home.
And another one, I understand the filing fees and court costs have been raised, but not by parliament, the only entity lawfully authorized to TAX.
Seems the Judges, or perhaps the Registrars dept has acted arbitrarily.
Sumptin’ like the Government school Administrators.
Hell, ZNS is trying it, so why not!!!
Freelance government, freelance Taxation.
Wow.
Chris, the double standards are astounding.
When we’re all struggling these “anomalies” stick out like sore thumbs.
What the private sector would never be allowed to do, the government does without conscience.
Well, there is a certain hardware store in Freeport that sometimes has a 25%-off storewide sale but at the register I understand that the discount is taken off the Boonded price although the customer is paying the Duty Paid price.
Same thing? Or maybe I missed the fine print stating ” *Discount calculated on Bonded price of goods”.
That is true, the discount is taken off of the Bonded price, as Government does not authorize a discound off of their Duty.
It is an interesting scenario, but Laws have not kept up with the times or legality.
For example,
In the rest of the Bahamas, Duty is considered a “cost of sale” in that it is pre-paid, the merchant hopes to recover this amount when the goods are sold, whether in a day or a decade.
However, being considered a cost of goods, means that the markup added by the merchant is also added to the prepaid duty amount. (total landed dutied cost)
I.E. profit on tax.
In Freeport, some entire inventories are held in a duty free state, therefor all markups are calculated on the pre dutiable amount.
The duty is treated as a sales tax, although not calculated on retail price, (as in the U.S.) but on the landed cost.
If you price shop, you will realize this generally results in lower on island costs to consumers.
No profit on tax.
I also know that this practice has caused more than one entity to reduce their markups in order to compete.
It gets really interesting when you consider this against the context of WTO accession and the Tax migration challenges we are reading more and more about in the news.
Private companies under existing legislation “collecting and remitting” taxes for the Government treasury.
Legally, unless the Government authorizes us to give the corresponding discount on their duty, we cannot.
It is their money.
Also, consider consumer protection law, where a merchant must display the price of goods.
Not only can you not have more than one price,(which we do in Freeport, bonded and duty paid) but we are required to display “our “price”, Which legally for us is the Bonded price.
Not our price plus the governments duty.
We display both for customer convenience.
Once people understand it, it becomes a non issue for 99%.
Remember also, when you “shop” in an establishment,
what you are enjoying is “permission to treat”
No one is forced to shop anywhere, or required to use the services of any company.
Save Government that is.
I hope this explains this to your satisfaction.
Last thought,
there is no law that requires us to collect their duty.
We could choose to not sell duty paid.
If we had legislators who grasped the ramifications of this, ( and trade agreements, OECD compliances etc etc)
We might be just a little further ahead in our country.
You can lead a horse to water, you cannot make him drink!!