Sir,

I refer to Mr. Colin Meadows’ letter in today’s (16. Oct) Punch concerning the benefits (?) of the Very Awful Tax. Please, sir, you are either so very naive that you will believe anything you are told or, more likely you are a paid member of the PLP propaganda machine. Your letter, and a few others I have read recently, together with the rather facile advertisements government has been bombarding us with are all around 10% fact and 90% pure fiction; your 10%, sir, is your first line, “The time draweth near for VAT to come on stream.”

None of these letters and, of course, government, is never going to admit to screwing up, make any mention that, in fact, there would be NO need for VAT or any other new tax if all funds due from current taxes, duties and fees, ohh and levies, of course, were paid and collected in full.

It has been mentioned elsewhere, government manages to recoup only some 45% of monies due, this is a terrible indictment of we Bahamian people, not just the monied few, who are the root cause of our problems, no doubt, but all of us are guilty to some extent. Someone, anyone, please step forward hold your hand to your heart and swear, on the proverbial stack of bibles, that you have never attempted to smuggle or declare a lower value on imported goods coming into our Bahamaland!

The European governments instituted VAT for, in the most part, two reasons: 1) customs duties, between the member states of the European Union, were to be eliminated, but a tax income was still required by those same states – hence VAT, and 2) the French, in particular, would have had a problem with a large loss of, protected civil service jobs – hence VAT.  Unfortunately the rest of the world was watching and saw an opportunity to jump on a VAT bandwagon, with, in a number of cases, inadequate investigation of the benefits, or otherwise, to a specific nation. In all honesty, can anyone point to a Caribbean nation, in particular, that has implemented VAT successfully?

OK, so down to basics, firstly the name of the tax is “VALUE ADDED tax;” with very, very few exceptions no value is added to anything here prior to that good being purchased by Joe Public in the store, except, of course, for profit taking by multiple levels of wholesaling; secondly, and something our government is very careful to avoid is owning up to the sheer costs involved in the implementation of VAT in the Bahamas.  VAT is the single most complex and expensive tax to administer and collect, and it is highly unlikely that VAT will show a return to our Exchequer for, probably, three years and will, in fact, be a drain on the Exchequer to implement.

Also much has been made of the fact that evaders of VAT will receive substantial penalties, yeah, right, like those meted out to evaders of Property Tax and Customs Duties, are suitably chastised?

I’m sure that the professional tax evaders here in the Bahamas are shaking in their boots … !

Yours in wonderment at the continued gullibility of people,

Henry Owens