Look at unpaid taxes, unpaid rent, unpaid car loans, unpaid mortgages, unpaid school fees, and the list goes on.people neednto be taught responsibility.

Bahamians should never have to pay taxes on their dwelling homes in any instance. They bear the brunt of the tax burden and once they acquire a dwelling home it should be tax free. Just look at how many millions are owed by foreign owned casinos whilst government try to squeeze locally owned web shops like lemons in the heat of summer. Look at the number of tax concessions given to foreign owned businesses compared to Bahamians. The entire tax structure is designed to keep Bahamians poor and impoverished while the foreigners can come here and become millionaires overnight. It’s a disgrace before heaven and on earth the amount of taxes being on everyday items being imported into this country. When VAT was introduced as part of tax reform it was supposed to replace customs duties (and stamp taxes) that were considered to be barriers to trade. But years later, not only is government still collecting VAT in addition to customs duties, but it has increased the amount of vat it is collecting by 60%. Even before the corona pandemic, Bahamians saw themselves in a worse economic condition than they have been in in a long time. And government is faring no better with the increased taxes. Two reasons 1 they are choking the guts out the local economy. Businesses cannot grow because of overtaxation and local Bahamians can only afford to buy what they need to survive . No room for progress. And even as many foreign businesses thrive (especially in the tourism industry) government sees little increases in revenue because these businesses are exempt from most of the taxes Bahamians pay. Bay Street and cable beach and paradise island has been closed for almost a year now. So basically it is the locals who are supplying government with revenue. What will happen in the next 3-9 months will be life changing for this country. As businesses will close, persons will be evicted from their apartments and others will lose mortgage properties. Next month will make a year since many in the population have worked. The cruise ships may not be back before summer or fall.. what are the short term plans to create employment and enhance government revenue? More taxes on the Lil poor, struggling, stressed out many unemployed Bahamians?

NO PLAN NO PROGRESS NO VISION

I am not disagreeing with everything you said but let me play counterpoint for a minute. With the closing of the major hotels, we have gotten a glimpse of what life is like without foreign investment to create jobs in our country. It ain't pretty. We simply cannot have a vibrant economy without foreign money unless we are all prepared to decrease our standards of living by orders of magnitude. That said, you are not going to attract big foreign investments without agreeing to tax breaks. It just not gonna happen. What I, and many others, have been saying is that our government leaders have consistently damaged our economy by mismanagement and plain outright malfeasance. Both parties, FNM and PLP are responsible for this deep hole we are in. I don't see it getting better either. The general mentality of our people is to worry about themselves and today instead of thinking long term and the country as a whole.

I am not knocking the foreign investment or the foreign investors. The point is they should not be given advantage over the Bahamian. Most of the small Bahamian owned motels and guest houses in New Providence and many family islands have closed because they don’t receive the support of the government. Many don’t get any concessions from government. Now put your point in another perspective. What if Bahamians were given the opportunity to buy into the many foreign businesses operating in the country? At one point Atlantis was a publicly traded company. Bahamians who bought stocks saw their investment increase four-fold in a few short years. Then Atlantis threw Bahamians their money back and went back to being private company. Was it because they didn’t want to disclose how much they are making? Stocks for every hotel, cruise line and airline servicing the Bahamas, including Bahamasair should be available to Bahamians on the local stock market.

You make a very good point. One of the stipulations, going forward, could be that some percentage of any large resort should be listed on BISX in order to provide us with a chance to share in the profits. Nothing wrong with that.

I too subscribe to the philosophy that one’s primary dwelling should incur ’no’ or minimal taxation. There have been many instances where municipalities around the world have had to redress unfairness in residential taxation (aka Real Property Tax) because it unfairly taxes folks who can ill afford it: think of the elderly retired home owner whose home is their greatest asset now being forced to pay high rate taxation on a fixed income.
The co$t of taxation on one’s primary residence should be nominal and include predominantly the cost to the government of record keeping. Documentation of Real Property is important to prevent fraud and theft of property in an effort to discourage fraudsters from stealing the poor and vulnerable’s most precious and valuable commodity, their home and property.
Taxation on second (and third) homes can be at a reasonable rate, although these are likely to be income generating properties subject to VAT or business taxes.

Decades of corrupt politicians have greatly enriched themselves at the expense of the vast majority of the Bahamian people by allowing foreign investors to receive outrageously generous concessions of every kind and by permitting politically connected very wealthy Bahamians and foreign residents alike to get away with manipulative schemes of one devious kind or another that result in them paying ridiculously low taxes and fees.

The entire corrupt system has left the country bankrupt and left too many Bahamians and local businesses financially destitute and unable to pay the taxes and fees our corrupt politicians are now seeking to impose on them.

The Bahamas postal service is non-existent. HOW CAN PEOPLE PAY THEIR TAXES WITHOUT MAIL SERVICE OR MAIL/POST BOXES??

Greed and selfishness have propelled us well on the way to becoming just another country in which the elite group sees no sense in working for the improvement of the country. They believe that if they don't take advantage of their situation in society, someone else will step into their place.

"How hard can it be to make sure that a bill gets in the hands of someone who owns a piece of property?"

The Bahamian government has yet to discover the technology of electronic mail, apparently.

The revenue enhancement unit was set up to go after individuals and companies for outstanding taxes. They collected ninety million dollars in a six month period after hurricane Matthew according to Moody's the rating agency. In fact, Moody's questioned why was that unit disbanded by the FNM government.

The editor is either unaware or bias in it's support of this government. The financial secretary Wilson and his technical team gave presentations to Peter Tunquest about the programs they were running to collect outstanding revenues and modernize the tax administration. Those programs were cancelled and the contractual staff sent home in 2017. What the auditor general 's report is revealing is the cascading effect of those poor decisions.

Somebody outside the Bahamas spoke to me yesterday and just expressed shock. How could a government raise the vat tax, a regressive tax and make no real attempt to collect all this outstanding taxes. The person said to me Bahamians simply don't understand much. The person said to me ,all of those programs are going to be restarted .The person also said that the international lending agencies including the IMF will insist that it to be done.