According to Caribbean360.com St. Kitts & Nevis is reducing its VAT from 17% to 5% on December 5 and 19 to stimulate consumer activity.
On Friday, November 29, 2013 Mr. Nigel Carty Minister of Information for St. Kitts & Nevis said:
“The discounted VAT days provide an opportunity as we near Christmas and the festive season for consumers of all strata of our society to purchase a range of goods at hugely discounted rates on the value-added tax. This, we believe will provide an opportunity for citizens and residents to make their usual extraordinary provisions for the Christmas and carnival-related activities.”
Apparently, when VAT was discounted like this in the past it "resulted in increased consumer activity with average daily sales of EC$13 million."
This obvious political ploy confirms the fact that VAT is not a good tax policy and in fact discourages economic activity.
One must hope that the policy makers here are being kept informed of matters like this so they might change course from VAT and institute the proper mix of economic and fiscal policies to help bring our economy out of the doldrums.
Improving the environment for investment is a good place to start in an effort to create jobs and help alleviate poverty.
Increasing the tax burden, possibly slowing the economy and government revenues even more, appears to be the wrong medicine for the country's fiscal woes.
What this tells us is that the VAT does not work & it also tells us how foolish the Christie government is in setting us all up for the same economy killer.What in the world is he thinking ???????
This is not “foolish”, it is outright tyranny.. Despotism is taking control just as it is in the United States.. Is this the transition to a new world order where government is run by executive decree?? VAT will end up being just like Obamacare, a failure in the making..
Americans are still foolish enough to believe that this is about improving healthcare while not realizing that this is the destruction of the finest healthcare systems in the world.. In a similar fashion, VAT will ruin the Bahamian economy creating more poverty and unemployment and driving the economy into an extended period of frightening stagflation.. VAT must be stopped for the sake of the nation..
So true Tradewinds.I can’t use the words I would like to right now to describe these idiots.When Obama says anything,go the opposite & the same with Christie & who ever else in government.Americans have elected a complete socialist commy in my opinion who will destroy them & Christie will destroy us.
That our “Idiots” can read is questionable, what must be true is they cannot comprehend what they read.
As of today they are still busy touting their National Health care scheme.
(the word scheme has become sanitized, but to me its meaning is the original, underhanded, devious, fraudulent)
Can we arrange to hold them all personally responsible, with mandatory Jail terms and forfeiture of assets if it does not yield this revenue “windfall” they expect?
Can we also get indemnity from current and foreseeable debt from the IMF for failure because they led our Idiots down this rosy path?
This is starting to look like the irresistible force (VAT) is about to meet the immovable object! ( The completely unprepared and still in denial Bahamian public)
I’m with you Oracle.Jail is far to kind for them to me.Just for the outright lies alone obama should be removed from the presidency.I have never seen a president take such pure joy in destroying a country.Even the young people are turning on him now.He has got to be the very worst president in the history of the world much less the USA.
Their only hope is a rebound President!
ours…..well……..uhm……
this is truly amazing !.. Hello Bahamians – are you learning something from this ??…. St. Kitts is a REAL POOR NATION – you have no idea how good you have it here !.. believe me – i have been to St. Kitts many many times and for many years !.. know it well !.
Poor yes Joei & the VAT is making it even poorer which is exactly why we do not want it here at all !!!
It also strikes me that the “discounting” of coerced taxation is the local Government “flexing” their Authority, trying to remind “the people” they are still relevant and to be appreciated!
In all, considered next to all the other Bills presented over the last 20 years, which had and still have serious flaws, this one has no redemptive value at all.
Different people, sectors and Coalitions are picking it apart, but it really deserves flushing in its entirety.
but
Of course, the private sector could start conducting themselves in the Government manner,
run up phenomenal deficits and default, give every excuse and delay tactic to the courts and debt collectors.
that would bring it all to a grinding halt!
oh, forgot, it already is the fiscal model for many Bahamians!
Herein lies the immovable object in the exercise.
Record keeping is largely a non existent practice.
A Grinding, screeching halt.
Flushed down the biggest toilet we could find & I hope all the politicians can go down with it !!!
Think of taxation as a means of redistributing income from the productive class in a given economy to the nonproductive class of that economy.. In theory this seems to be justifiable on moral grounds, but in practice it is a powerful incentive to become part of the latter or welfare class.. Today in America over 49 percent of its citizens and residents receive some form of payment or handout from the State and Federal Governments.. Productive work is loosing out to the acceptance of government welfare payments.. Why work when you can stand in line and get it for nothing.. In some States these handouts can exceed $35,000 a year..
We have been told by the Bahamian government that some of the anticipated revenues raised from VAT will be used to reduce poverty.. What a bunch of bunk they are telling us.. VAT will give rise to expanding poverty as it drives more of our struggling population into the poverty pit.. Employment will decline as the cost of living rises rapidly resulting in a rise in the poverty rate.. This will create dramatic changes in our economic and social structure which will take decades to return to normalcy..
If the government is counting on hoped for revenue increases from VAT to offset the expanding financial burden from the growing numbers falling into poverty, they are living in a fool’s paradise.. Only real economic growth that is sustainable can make a meaningful dent in poverty, the curse of society..
Trickle down works Tradewinds but the present powers can’t see that.Obama talks about spreading the wealth from all but himself.He has a brother in Africa living on about a dollar a week,why does he not help his own brother ? He wants every one equal no matter what or who is working for it & who is not.Its like the fast food people & the minimum wage,you have to start somewhere so what should the store managers get if the workers are increased so much,three times that ? Its all right out of the communist manifesto & obama is leading the charge.
Unrealistic expectations,
lead to abject failure and disappointment.
Entry level jobs are just that:
Entry level,
Work experience for those not going onto higher education.
Should everyone be “entitled” to higher education?
Same problem, the outcome being that some with degrees
have no sense!
Life is a journey of utmost importance to the individual, that can have benefits to his surroundings.
That cannot be mandated or socially planned.
No one will want to travel that road, make the effort, strive to quickly gain that better income, knowledge or position.
Sit back and it will come?
only if it is taken from someone else.
This attitude in this interview with an eleven year old girl is what built America,not the attitude obama has now. http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/12/05/glenn-has-best-radio-interview-of-the-year-with-an-11-year-old-girl/?
It is difficult to say anything these days without sounding political but I lived in the US for 20 years and have been out for another 16 and paid more taxes there than living in St. Kitts under the VAT system today. I also lived on another Caribbean island where the VAT was implemented many years before St. Kitts’. Let’s face it, none of us wants to pay more taxes, yet when governments fairly and across the board implements additional taxes for what ever reason – generally to pay debts and make improvements – we complain. Consider this; here in St. Kitts we do not have an income tax and most small businesses can get by paying an annual registration fee of EC$500. We are paying off our debts here with the VAT and an effective citizenship by investment program. St. Kitts is progressive so don’t use us as a reason for why Bahamians should not have a VAT. You should ask your government to demonstrate why you need a VAT but as tough as ours might be, come see the development that is taking place here; may be, just maybe your government can learn something from us.
What’s the debt to GDP in St. Kitts and Nevis now Patrick?
We have development here as well, but it is outpaced by government waste and excessive spending.
I cannot join you in justifying immoral taxation.
The problem with the Bahamas is Patrick,we pay a fortune in taxes now, the business tax is outrageous & the government is just pissing the money away & are not paying off a damn thing.The taxes in the us are high to say the least & you can see where the overspending & high taxes have gotten them.I don’t mind paying taxes but you can’t kill everyone with high taxes if you expect for business to survive which also means jobs by the way.To quote Sir Winston Churchill “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket & trying to lift himself up by the handle” .
Overtaxed, time to brush up on your basic Marxism .. So called “equality of outcomes” are not emphasized by Karl Marx.. It is more of a tenet of communist revisionism as advocated on occasion by the current occupant of the White House..
What Karl Marx emphasized in his often cited essay, “Critique of the Gotha Program” was a world of abundant goods resulting from socialist production where goods (wealth) are allocated “to each according to his ability, to each according to his need”.. Marx emphasized worker ability where Obama took the fantasy a step farther emphasizing “Equal Outcomes” regardless of any ability.. Marx’s premise at least was based on his belief in abundant social production where so-called equal outcomes assumes the economic fiction of unlimited production of goods.. Just more fancy talk void of any truth or economic meaning..