The foxes are guarding the hen house and each new generation of foxes is more evil and gravalicious than the one before. 'A come to jesus moment' (contrived by the foxes) will be a disaster, as in every church that has them the pastors end up with expensive new cars, multi-million dollar living accommodations, private jets, etc... Our country can only be saved by MEN with righteous spiritual discernment, as men are natural leaders, creators, and explorers. Unfortunately, the system set up by our colonizers was not designed to produce such men; leaving us doomed to follow in the path of Greece and Venezuela.

He sounds like he is back on the right side of the bed. But we don't know if someone will gave him a nightmare then he roll over to the next side again.

This fool is trying to tax us to death...meanwhile the poor folk of Albany are still tax free while not even having to leave the compound to support the economy. The impoverished at Lyford Cay are paying a fraction of their real property taxes. Moron Sands...control your government's spending and then come talk to us about further taxation.

Income tax can only work for those earning over $25,099 per year. Those below dont pay NIB so why they gonna reveal themselves by paying income tax?

VAT needs to go to 15% as soon aa economy will allow and exemptions need to go away on VAT.

It is the best collection method for Bahamas.

Beer and liquor can also be taxed an additional 25 cents per bottle on import. Gardener and farm worker permits can be trippled in January and trippled again in Jan 2023.

Pardon me, but you seem to have a very incorrect notion of NIB floor and ceilings. I would encourage you to look up per the NIB website the taxable wage calculations. There is no floor of having to make more that "25,099". However, if you are then referring to the insurance ceiling, one can only be taxed at maximum on the first 710 BSD weekly or 3,077.00 monthly finally 36,924 per annum.

More headline grabbing nonsense. He claims the needed reforms are "painful". Utter nonsense. How is it "painful" to stop taxing the average person to the bone (by consumption taxes like VAT) and shift to taxes on income (corporate and personal) and applying NORMAL levels of taxation to foreign owned properties (which itself would bring in close to a billion annually)?

Another politician looking for headlines, I'm afraid.

This country would have NO DEBT if it stopped giving wealthy corporations like COLINA, FOCOL, Arawak Homes, J S Johnson, Doctor's Hospital and Commonwealth Brewery 100 percent breaks on corporate tax, instead of taxing the meagre earnings of the people they make their money off of.

So long as our people are ignorant, people like Sands can get away with saying stupid things and sounding smart.

Ah... those foreign owners who ALL pay they their taxes every year? It's the Bahamians who don't pay at all. But go ahead and make it about all the bad, bad foreigners.

There is an inverse relationship between the price of real estate and the cost of maintenance. Taxing foreign owned properties for and extra billion a year on top of disaster insurance would cause a drop in prices and ownership. The Bahamas will, over time, become an AirBNB location where owning a private property will only make sense for a few.

We thank God for Sands no fog in our eyes scalpel honesty. But now what?

lol Mr. Wishy Washy

If he had sense his main point should be before we institute any new taxes lets reform the current taxes and ensure proper collection. Too many run scot free whiles the poor pick up the bill. Taxing like your crazy is not a solution

while women under the age of 20 have two and three kids , go to social services for food, get tax payers money in free uniforms and health care services. illegal immigrants leach on our educational and health services. government introduced VAT , it didnt help, so it increased it to 12 % , now that didn't help, so the solution is to introduce another tax ? that is the dumbest idea of the day. You could not do anything with a VAt introduction, and a VAT increase, now you want another tax? Stop talking foolishness, bey!

The magnitude of the problem escapes most Bahamians as they try to search for loopholes, scapegoats, quick fixes, and foreigners to tax. None of the ideas mentioned here generate enough revenue to fix the problem; that's reality.

The doctors and lawyers will not tax themselves.

Perry Christie wanted PAYROLL TAX, not INCOME TAX. The doctors and lawyers are not on PAYROLL.

These people have no morals. Only those who earn more than 35 or 4o thousand per year should pay income tax.

Sands is so full of it.

Without significant and effective government reform to stamp out the waste, fraud, corruption and outright theft that has been so pervasive throughout our government and government controlled enterprises for decades now, tax reform and more taxes will do absolutely nothing to help resolve our country's very dismal financial condition. As we have seen all too often in the past, especially since the introduction of VAT, more taxes just feeds and helps mask more waste, more fraud, more corruption and more outright theft at the more senior levels of government and government controlled enterprises.

Cleaning house would require parliament to create an independent government reform commission made up of not more than six non-Bahamian commissioners from at least three different commonwealth countries. These commissioners should not have had or currently have any close significant ties or dealings of any kind involving our country or any of its residents.

The commissioners would have to be highly qualified and reputable proven leaders in governmental affairs and/or the business world who enjoy statesman like stature and standing in their home countries. They would have to be given broad sweeping powers to indentify, investigate and root out existing waste, fraud, corruption and outright theft, while at the same time introducing significant reforms that would make all of our government agencies and departments, and government controlled entities, much more streamlined, productive and resilient to waste, fraud, corruption and outright theft.

A mechanism will need to be put in place to ensure the independent government reform commission is adequately funded and not beholding to government for its funding. The commission should be expected to prioritize and complete the bulk of its work within three years by targeting those areas known or found to be the most vulnerable to the greatest amount of systemic waste, fraud, corruption and outright theft.

Only after the commission has finished its work and produced for the Bahamian people an executive summary of its major findings, main accomplishments and most important recommendations, should major tax reform of any kind be considered.

Exactly!

This man must not have made enough gazillions as a surgeon. I think he needs another vaccination, maybe to the brain. As long as these governments remain corrupt, stupid and non-transparent, further taxation is only a means to fill the pockets of the corrupt politicians and their cronies, and there seem to be soooo many of them.....

Perhaps the worst thing is the blatancy of the corruption. They know no shame.

EXACTLY!!

**Borrower Countries, shouldn't** expect to feed their spend, spend habits without running-up National Debts in the **Billions of Dollars** without stringent changes to the strings the Lenders use to wrap the **imposing of new taxation - along with higher rates collected from existing levels of taxation and fees** tightly tied around the **Borrower Countries,** yes?

For clarity: tax reform = tax increases

What about reducing government expenses? Why nobody is talking about it?

Although I am very much in agreement with reducing government expenses, the consequence of doing so would significantly increase the number of unemployed, which in turn would increase the number of people requiring financial assistance from the government.

An over-bloated lazy government workforce has been in existence for so long now that it has become part of the Bahamian culture. I'm not sure there is actually a painless way to get out of it.

I drove by NIB on Blake road the other day and saw several four doors Jeep Wranglers. These cost $80k a piece. Are these vehicles really necessary?

@Bobsyeuncle: You may as well stop giving the same excuses for doing nothing that we've heard from our corrupt politicians for decades. Decades of tolerating waste, fraud, corruption and outright theft has brought us to the final fork in the road. There's no longer the option to kick the can down the road. And no matter which way we go from here we will find ourselves having to contend with very great economic and social pain, much civil unrest and, yes, plenty of crime. If we pick the wrong path from here, generations of Bahamians to come will suffer a most miserable existence with most of them being nothing more than very low cost slave labour in their own country. In short, we could all too easily find ourselves quickly transformed into the next Haiti of the Caribbean region if we choose the wrong path from here.

You'd thought the expected be more MoneySmart corporate and elites, who are **most financially responsible** for the RedRegime's being seated at the governing power table, own evaluation of the existing Billions of Dollars under loans, would've been eminently opposed to the borrowing of new billions to fund paying the carrying costs and charges attached to the old **pre-COVID** Billions of Dollars.
""Might sound strange** but because some of the Billions were borrowed at nearing **LoanShark** carrying charges and fees so high that even **their fellow gated-communities atheists** can't wait to bash them, yes?

What Dr.Sands said in this budget presentation is not ground-breaking to me. People have said this before.

Dr. Sands forgets when the cabinet in which he was a part of ,terminated those programs started by financial secretary Wilson. Those programs include: the Revenue Enhancement Unit, the Click to Clear Customs and the Tyler Techologies Program., Those programs were designed to crack down on tax evasion and also modernize the current ax system. Like some one said to me in the winter of 2018, the REU will be restarted. The person said that the FNM government needs that program. True to form ,they restarted it.

The government in which he is currently part of, has made a serious fiscal policy mistakes. As for the review of the tax system, there have been two that have been done already. One of was done under the Ingraham government in the nineties and one done under the last Christie government.

Dr .Sands simply speaks from both sides of his mouth. The journalists don't ask any questions. They simply want sensational headlines. When you speak to people who understand government policies, they will explain to you why certain policies or programs were implemented.

Anyone got any suggestions on where to move to?

Wyoming.

**I'm just sayin',** the acquiring of Motor Vehicles, Air & Sea Crafts, Machinery, Furnitures', and Cleaning Supplies are big money items, and whenever politicians and big money collide - it's best to keep both eyes, totally focused and glued wide open, yes?

With world wide inflation rearing it's head the Bahamas will be pulling off a miracle if the Government can maintain the Bahamian Dollar one to one with the US Dollar.

**If you think Jesus is real,** that is unless one the atheists, it's more odds favourable to be wagering a hefty bet on there being a Jesus sightin' than tis for maintaining the Dollars' status quo, yes?

The National Debt is of grave concern but what about run-away inflation? From gas to food to building materials to vehicles to appliances. How long will bit last and how many personsand families will find it impossible to feed themselves. Will there be another strain and drain on National Insurance and Social Services? Will it lead to a global economic downturn?

Did Duane Sands talk like this when he sat around the Cabinet table?????

NEVER!!!