EDITOR, The Tribune.

It must indeed be The People’s Time if one looks at Tribune242.com Latest Business Headlines.

• Sebas’s Property Group In ‘Extraordinary Growth’

• No Vat In Govt’s Vacation Rental Deal With Airbnb

• Govt Alarmed Over Web Shop Draw, Product Rise

Unbelievably sandwiched, in between grotesquely profitable endeavours of a very few individuals in businesses that were unlawful just a few years ago, is the new People’s Time Government Minister of Tourism announcing a deal with Airbnb to tax the few hundred, mostly Bahamian “PEOPLE” who eke out a living by opening up their homes to visitors from the far corners of the earth, enticed here, not by the Government of the Bahamas, which does not market to these places, and as far as I am aware, none of these Bahamians has asked for, nor been given, any Crown Land, no Duty Free Concessions, not even Real Property Tax Waivers or discounts, yet the PEOPLE’S Government wants to “SHARE” in these Bahamians tiny piece of this miraculous pie that it (the People’s Government) had absolutely no investment in, nor any part in creating, nor even maintaining.

I am so minded of AESOPS fable:

A dog seized some meat from the butcher shop and ran away with it until he came to a river. When the dog was crossing the river, he saw the reflection of the meat in the water, and it seemed much larger than the meat he was carrying. He dropped his own piece of meat in order to try to snatch at the reflection. When the reflection disappeared, the dog went to grab the meat he had dropped but he was not able to find it anywhere, since a passing raven had immediately snatched the meat and gobbled it up. The dog lamented his sorry condition and said, ‘Woe is me! I foolishly abandoned what I had in order to grab at a phantom, and thus I ended up losing both that phantom and what I had to begin with.’

This fable is about greedy people who grasp at more than they need.

So yes, you have the power to tax this little miracle but you will kill it, just as surely as you have burdened the hotels with taxes and fees and God only knows what else. And some other country will benefit through your unbelievable greed, ignorance, and stupidity.

BRUCE G. RAINE

Nassau,

June 17, 2017.