Thank you. This article very well sums up my frustration, anger and bewilderment at the way VAT has been rolled out. Nothing about VAT's introduction has been positive, and the Government already seems hell bent on blaming the retailers for all the ills we will face. We have already heard that supermarkets, cinemas and fast food outlets are caught in the crossfire.....how long will it be until so many industries are up in arms before someone admits that this was ill thought out? I will not hold my breath waiting for the Government to acknowledge it does not know what it is doing

You are absolutely correct that we Bahamians are for the most part clueless.
Duty has always been a hidden tax, especially from the consumer at local retail, and save their attempts in evading duty at the airport, attempts which are largely successful, few even understand that simple tax!
The biggest challenge for Price control/Consumer affairs is finding legitimate complaints among the thousands they will get born out of consumer ignorance.
All very time consuming for a mathematically challenged investigator with a bent for wielding the Government stick.
Having had many "opportunities" to educate consumers, and realizing the absence of any rationale to appeal to, this is the biggest hill to climb.
It does not help that the appointed head of Price control is on a witch hunt and making all sorts of misleading statements and by self admission, is looking to expand his new found power.
VAT represents a first world tax structure introduced to the most lax, non record keeping society of the third world.
Sadly, the Government could have appealed to the private sector for help but instead chose to ignore them, save perhaps a few, but none were consulted that I'm aware of.
Perhaps the plan to make the private sector the bad guy gave them fits of conscience on that score.
Nor did it help that the private sector put self first and foremost in the initial VAT @ 15% fiasco, when they rushed to get dibs for their sector on exemptions!
In the second go around, most were in denial almost up to the last minute.
Overall the Government has done a pathetic job in implementing a necessary evil where national finances are concerned, but to that point I do not hold out any hope they will do anything but waste the money.
It is their talent, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.
As to social media, it is possibly better called a digital lynch mob, where the accused is denied even the pretense of a trial.
Guilty with no chance of innocence declared.
Will the Government apologize to any of the publicly accused if found innocent?
When has government ever apologized for any thing?

The government and its revenue advisers have followed 140+ other countries in the world with a pure VAT model (where there are no exemptions, and no variable added sales taxes), that all successfuly use **inclusive** pricing. Not one of these countries use exclusive pricing because VAT is not a sales tax. Our policymakers chose to follow a successful, tried and tested pricing model, rather than adopt the wishes of a handful of local retailers who would prefer to disguise from customers the true, final prices of products in their advertising material and on the shelf, right up to the point they open their wallets.

Inclusive pricing means **the price you see is the price you pay** and the receipt you get helpfully gives customers a subtotal of the tax component if they wish to keep a record of how much VAT they have paid to government. You cannot buy a product without first having paid VAT, there are no exceptions.

Citizens deserve transparent prices that are accurate and all inclusive, and that is why the Bahamas Federation of Retailers has comprehensively lost the argument for exclusive-pricing with both sides of politics.

Retailers who are genuinely interested in transparency and full disclosure in the interests of customers will simply price their products in this sort of format:

**"Price: $129.00 *(includes VAT of $9.00)*"**

Hardly complicated.

Neither the USA nor Canada have *pure VAT*. Again: the USA has a *sales tax* model. Canada has a *mixed consumption tax model* that involves combined 1. VAT *plus* 2. sales tax involving up to six different rates depending on the province *plus* 3. a large number of product lines that are exempt from either VAT or exempt from one of the sales taxes or exempt from both VAT and the sales tax.

So neither example you provide is relevant. There are 140+ other examples that are relevant, from 140+ countries that have the same *single consumption tax model* with almost no exemptions ("pure VAT") that we do. And **all** use VAT **inclusive** pricing.

You know all of this yet you talk yourself into believing otherwise because you cannot admit you are wrong. Just like you seem to want to deliberately fool prospective customers into thinking that a $120 advertised sweater is not in fact a $129 sweater until you have them with their wallet open at your cash register. A customer cannot buy your sweater and leave with it without paying VAT included in the price and in the payment. So you price it VAT-inclusive on the shelf. Its now the law.

That such deep ignorance of fundamental concepts continues to be displayed from certain quarters of the retail community regarding their obligations to customers and to the law should ring alarm bells within the community. If you and the BFR were genuinely interested in transparency you would price your goods in a format like the ones I've used as examples:

**"Price: $129.00 *(includes VAT of $9.00)*"**

or

**Item: $120.00 + VAT: $9.00**

**Total price: $129.00**

But you're not really committed to transparency are you. You expect customers to stand at your shelf or rack and mentally compute the final price, or carry a pocket calculator or abacus with them when they go out shopping.

If you think you should exclude VAT from the shelf price, why do you not also exclude, say, the variable cost of store lighting , or the cost of delivery of the item from the wholesaler's warehouse, from the pricetag too? Add that at the cash register along with the VAT? Plus plus plus everything.

Restaurants, you say? Have you even read the guide?

The Bahamas VAT Guide (Ministry of Finance, Dec 23, 2014, page 13) states:

>"**Pricing**

>All prices displayed must include VAT. Labels on goods and prices displayed on the shelf must be inclusive of VAT. You must also clearly display a sign that states that your prices are inclusive of VAT. If you display a list of items (for example on a menu or a price board) the price must be inclusive of VAT and you must display a declaration that clearly states that your prices are inclusive of VAT. Restaurants with dine-in table service, however, *may publish menus with the VAT exclusive price and the amount of VAT shown separately*.”

Where do you think the VAT amount is shown...etched onto the underside of the table? On a separate document under the counter? No, on the menu, shown separately.

Are you now arguing that your retailers would like to do this too on your pricetags and shelf labels (given that clothing stores do not have menus)? If so then you can, go for it, you are welcome to, and you can do so within the existing law, because this is how its done:

**Item: $10.00 + VAT: $0.75**

**Total price: $10.75**

Have you also noticed that millions of retailers across the world display VAT-inclusive pricing, including hundreds now in The Bahamas, and have systems that are quite capable of doing so. Its hardly the governments fault that some retailers represented by your federation are using antiquated business systems. Many businesses here are fully compliant already.

What about Panama, Argentina, Barbados, Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Peru, Paraguay, Guyana, Uruguay... all with VAT and a VAT-inclusive pricing model.

The US has a sales tax. Canada has a mixed consumption tax model. Neither of these countries are comparable to our system.

But we haven't copied either the USA or Canada. We didn't introduce their tax systems here. They use different consumption tax models to us. Ours is used in 140+ other countries, all with VAT-*inclusive* pricing.

You don't speak for "most Bahamians" nor the "majority" of anyone - you speak for a handful of local retailers wedded to a debate in which your preference was resoundingly rejected by both sides of politics. Its refreshing to see so many local retailers who have embraced the VAT-inclusive pricing laws already with no fuss, honest pricetags that show all information, and a positive attitude to working within the law.

Congratulations to those Bahamian businesses who care about consumers and who already agree that **the price you see is the price you pay**.

Since when is almost the entire European continent (all with VAT-inclusive pricing) considered the third world? Have you ever travelled?

What a ludicrous statement from someone with a European name who retails clothing from European brands made in European countries where VAT-inclusive pricing has been successfully operating for decades. How can the Bahamas Federation of Retailers be taken seriously when it wants pricing systems that relate to completely different tax policies than our own?

Thankfully many other local businesses already agree that the price customers see is the price customers pay, and have already priced everything VAT-inclusive in the interests of honesty and transparency.

A small group of highly self interested retailers are making it up as they go along. The Bahamas has a tax system that requires honest, transparent shelf pricing - VAT inclusive - so that **the price you see is the price you pay**.

If retailers want to highlight the VAT portion of the final sale price, all they need to do is ticketprice their stock like this:

**"Price: $129.00 *(includes VAT of $9.00)*"**

No more hiding. No more trickery. From government, or from a small handful of self interested retailers for whom consumer protection is apparently a foreign concept.

In the preliminary stages, when the tax policy was being designed, in the lead up to the White Paper publication, some businesses and business groups asked for VAT-*inclusive* pricing too. And once the design was completed, and all aspects weighed and measured, VAT-*inclusive* pricing was adopted. The policy has now been implemented and Bahamian shoppers know that **the price they see is the price they pay**.

Government cannot "hide" any future tax increase or decrease under either pricing system. The difference is consumers can see any increase or decrease on individual products advertised and priced VAT-inclusively with tags stating **Item price + VAT = Total price**

Under exclusive pricing, using your logic, they wouldn't know about it until they reached the checkout and were asked for a completely different amount if money than they were expecting to pay.

The people like what they see. With VAT-inclusive pricing they see it.

Incidentally, the clarification on price controls and the removal of all exemptions resulted in a *single type/rate consumption tax model* ("pure VAT" with inclusive shelf prices). This is where any similarities with Canada ended. Business got what it asked for.

Well let's get one thing straight up front...businesses did not WANT VAT and to this day the government has not listened to what we WANT or asked for.

That is usually how tax imposition by governmnent - any tax, any governmnent - works, yes.