Obviously this man is suffering from Corona to his brain. How can he even think of wanting the government to increase taxes or introduce new ones in the middle of a world pandemic? Doesn’t this man realize that practically everyone was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, whether it was Natural or man-made. The sensible thing would be for government to effect a rapidly a recovery as possible and allow those businesses that suffered and also find themselves in an unfavorable financial situation to, at least Uniate recovery. Then government can seek to raise taxes. If government was to levy taxes on businesses, then they have no choice but to pass the increases on to the consumer. And, in most situations the consumer will be the persons least likely to afford them.

....he is pure status quo...don't rock the boat, borrow, tax and spend.

Yes we have a regressive taxation system , however why only ever talk about increasing taxes?

....because they don't want to talk about cutting spending, transparency, government waste, corruption, inefficient government etc etc.

....much easier just to cry poor mouth, borrow $2.3 billion last year and now ask for more taxes and say that the wealthy can pay more

I read this twice and still don't understand this man's point. Maybe he should become a politician.

....he is, he is still young, once completed at Fidelity I am sure he will move onto Governor of the Central Bank or Minister of Finance in either administration.

Increasing taxes when 100,000 bahamians are in food lines and most hotels are closed and covid variants are raging is crazy.

increase taxes now and the rich will further close what few businesses they still have open.

Putting Mr. Bowe's usual loquaciousness aside, the article itself is extremely poorly written....literally incoherent in many places.

..."childed Bahamian governments for not looking beyond politics...they should look at long term planning..." 25 years ???

Well, dat's a big ting when there have not been able to have govts in more than 5 year political party plan for power 5 term alternating . And when previously failed one takes office dey hav to untangle traps, white elephants, an unfeasible hospitals on top of hill to first grade down hill, bogging them down...Contracts rentals wid no exit to cancel unless exhorbitant money costs,, ...they wastefully close, sidetrack, and/or discontinue excellent programs wid impetus from previous govt,..... try to restart programs now run down an dormant previously when in power.... continued new mismanagement imputting their own political appointed layer of cronies in senior decision making an so ridiculus dat one set of cronies even know the previous set of cronies like two sides of same coin, ...limited lack of investigations buying mansions leaving dem to rot at expense to refurbish, ....forceful money injections into govt agencies without accountability and noone guilty,... and hot air blown when in Opposition side etcetc. and expectant Opposition salvitating dribbling and expecting another govt term.

Good views Mr. Bowe on your long term national plan and keep on wid more views.

I've said it time and time again.....YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER SEEK TO FEED NEW SIGNIFICANT TAXES OF ANY KIND TO A HIGHLY CORRUPT SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.

DOING SO ONLY REWARDS ONLY THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FAILED SYSTEM TO BEGIN WITH, SPECIFICALLY THE CORRUPT FEW THAT THRIVE THE MOST WITHIN IT.

Just take a good hard look at the slate of candidates that has been put forward by the FNM party and the slate of candidates that has been put forward by the PLP party for the soon to be called national general election. Would you really want to feed (entrust) either slate with significant new taxes?

WHAT WE REALLY NEED FIRST AND FOREMOST IS SERIOUS, MEANINGFUL AND SUSTAINED GOVERNMENT REFORM THROUGHOUT ALL LEVELS OF GOVERMENT, which I would submit only a winning slate of new independent candidates could ever deliver. And if the electorate doesn't see fit to deliver on that at the polls, then we should probably be happy with the looming full blown financial crisis that will result in foreign organizations and agencies like the IMF taking full control of our nation's financial affairs and economic policies.

Perhaps start by taxing the government employees who were paid to stay at home during the whole pandemic while the private sector sat at home wondering how they would afford to pay their bills.

The enormous size of our grossly over-bloated public service sector already has a most serious choke hold on our nation's finances and economy. And successive corrupt and incompetent FNM and PLP administrations alike, especially the current one, have continued to exponentially grow the public sector headcount by thousands annually. And this is mainly because of their failed leadership and obvious inability to introduce the right kinds of economic policies that would grow the domestically owned (not foreign owned) portion of our private sector. Mr. Bowe would probably be the first to admit that a good portion of our public service sector is now nothing but a most costly and unproductive social welfare scheme. A most serious drag on our economy to say the least. Bluntly put, the public service sector ship has been allowed to take on too much water and is now on the verge of sinking all of us.

@tribanon. The public service shop got this way with the political parties from their political election campaigns with political candidates in seems talks with their supporters to be rewarded with govt employment by the winning political party in govt.

No one as a workrr or political campaigner should be employed for govt vacancies based of greater political affiliations than ability to fill genuine authentic govt dept vacancies, based on qualifications and abilities to best fill the job.

Campaigners with inducements, encouragements or rewards of govt salaried jobs during or related to elections campaigning for votes, should NOT be rewarded with these seems govt artifical jobs by sacrifices/expenses of citizens by govt, then govt thereafter not having enough hospital beds, employment of seems continuous shortages of nurses etcetc, or, of growing of the private sector.

It is time to have a candid discussion about the bloated civil service, government waste, and bureaucracy before we feed more money into the monster.

....a sure way to loose an election, not even the PLP is touching this topic

That's precisely why it's so important for the electorate to support a slate of new independent candidates in the soon to be called national general election. A vote for the FNM or PLP in this next election would really be a vote for the financial collapse of our nation. And once that happens the Communist Chinese Party and/or foreign organizations and agencies like the IMF would take full control of our nation's financial affairs and economic policies.

No one hates taxes and big government more than me but the reality is that we are under taxed in the Bahamas. We collect around 20% of GDP in taxes, lower than most of our Caribbean counterparts and certainly lower than most developed nations. Problem is that we want first world services (welfare and benefits) but only pay third world taxes. Yes taxes need to be increased but only in a progressive way on the wealthiest in our society. Easiest way is to drastically increase and finally enforce property taxes on very high end real estate. We also should immediately introduce a low corporate tax that is based on profits and not revenue, with highest tax levels on our most profitable companies. Finally, we need to make serious decisions regarding heavily subsidized government corporations. Bahamasair and ZNS along with other entities need to be privatized to reduce the constant drain on taxpayers.

You're looking at a rather meaningless statistic. If you adjust our total GDP for the foreign component repatriated (taken out of our country) by foreign investors, leaving only the domestic component that really matters, you would quickly appreciate that the overall effective tax rate for many Bahamians is much higher than you presently think and our government would care to admit.

Increasing taxes in the middle of a recession is just about the worst decision one can make. This will kill any potential recovery. Any first-year economics student knows that.

The problem of the Bahamas is not "regressive taxation", but government overspending. For example, in OECD countries, the average public sector employment rate is 21.3%. In the Bahamas it’s 33.7%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c…

Mr>Bowe is correct. Social benefits doled out during COVID 19. Bahamians had already paid for these benefits. but they pat themselves on the back and try to fool some people.

Check the high rent paid for the governor and other high rentals. check the post office deal and
Our Lucaya sale and severence pay. The GB airport severance pay. never mind the $l.00 receipts. . is the Government house repairs complete.

The creation of consultants and new posts

Never mind the money paid to Civil servants in some cases it is very little

Look more at the consultants and the new post created.

$9000 per month for rent. how many civil servants can that money pay.?

Whatever little money low-income people make goes back into the economy. .

the need to be tough or not, only the rich can afford more taxes. So start there, increase taxes on businesses boasting of making huge profits in the pandemic. They have the margin to assist