Ah the TCC. Ours was denied and now cannot import anything. Cause NIB said we were not compliant. Seems after 22 years of monthly payments, 1 was missed during Lockdown in 2020.
Reason, an NIB employee working from home fouled up the payment entry.

Think that an easy fix? Hell no. Will go down to NIB for the third time with the stamped C10, bank statement and canceled check. Seems you need some higher up to correct it. But they are never in office nor can be reached. Typical Government office where plenty of people work but cannot get anything doe but shut you down with ease!

Said this would cause chaos when it was announced. Another ill thought out economy impacting change. What they could have done was given the companies 6 months to come into compliance. I cant imagine that there are hundreds if not thousands of bahamians who now have critical supplies, some life altering e.g., medical supplies, caught up in another finance ... whatever you call these string of head strachers

Whos in charge? As the wheels kept stuck deeper in the mess, will wait for the PM to announce that he knew nothing about it

@ This is Ours. Do you know what you are talking about?

You don't understand . Do you? This is customs compliance issue which has nothing to do with the financial secretary.Bahamas Customs after doing a review,realize that some courier companies have cleared goods and have not remitted the prescribed duties in the appropriate time.
The persons who the courier firms cleared the goods for,already paid the duties to them .They have failed in part of their fiduciary duties.These duties don't belong to them and are not their cash flow for their operations. These duties rightfully belong to the Bahamas government. These firms know exactly what they were doing.It is really a form of arbitrage.
This is the same reason First Caribbean International Bank had a loss on some mortgages , a couple of years ago.The loss was in the million dollar range. I know one of the lawyers who fail in his fiduciary duty in that matter and subsequently disbarred. Some one also told me some of some Canadian real estate investors who got burned in a similar situation. They purchase property and the lawyer never paid to record the sale of the property. So they discovered,they have no title for the property they purchase in the Bahamas.

2 weeks ago, the PM made a public statement about a company that owed the govt 6.4 million in immigration fees collected on the govts behalf in addition to money related to the food program. Did the govt prevent the company from doing business? No the PM reported we've collected so much in cash, they returned a truck, a boat and we expect a few hundred thousand tomorrow and I assume that arrangement would go on until whatever fees were outstanding were collected. For that single business I would have said the govt could have put locks on the door, but they didnt.

**Was it 2 years ago that a govt report came out that revealed that hotels were behind on their electricity bills to the tune of hundreds of thousands,** I didnt get the impression that that was a normal *we resolve payables in 30 days* situation. **There was another report of hundreds of companies that were years behind on NIB payments. Was a decision made to cutoff the electricity to the hotels until they paid up? Were the businesses shutdown until they cleared up the outstanding NIB payments**? also a compliance issue. But the govt didnt take that action because they understood to do so would do more harm vs any good that would come from some businesses resolving all of their outstanding bills immediately.

I am aware of how VAT works, **I am aware that no business should be dipping into VAT for operational expenses, I never said *just let them continues as is, it's only money*. I said give them 6 months to resolve. That 6 months looks like anything that's deemed reasonable,** for example, current payments have to be up to date as well as the receipt of some payment toward the outstanding. If a business displays that they can't remit current payments then you take drastic action.

**What you're missing is that these couriers are a critical part of the economy in the absence of a functioning post office**. some persons use these couriers to receive medicine to live. I stood waiting in line at a courier a little over a year ago as a lady tried to resolve the location of her medicine. **I can imagine many other mission critical transactions that are now stuck as people shifted to using couriers instead of the unreliable post office.**

All I'm saying is, this is yet another baffling decision in a string of other such decisions when the same results could have been achieved by more temperate means.

An initiative the govt could undertake is having any business remitting more than 500,000 in VAT keep a segregated VAT account. **This would be a proactive approach to avoiding the buildup in the first place**. A part of their reporting would show the transfer of 10% of any revenue deposited to the account. I dont know all the inner workings of such a scheme and I understand that there's also the issue of VAT returns to consider for cash flow, so it might be the transfer of maybe 8%. the purpose is to show a segregation of the funds and that those funds are not being used for operational costs. I'm going on the assumption that opening a segregated account doesnt result in any undue burden on the business.

@ This is Ours. The situation with those courier firms would not be tolerated in other tax jurisdictions. Not in Canada, Barbados, the United Kingdom and definitely not in the United States.One of the major problems in this country is the low level of tax compliance in this country. Of course, the media in this country do not discuss or do not understand that.

Not paying electricity to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars would not be tolerated as well.

I'm not talking about what "should" have happened. Everybody agrees on what "should" have happened. Its egregious that someone would collect VAT fees from a customer and then use those fees that dont belong to them for personal or business expenses.

We are here.

Our options are to address the current reality with a solution that is disruptive and damaging or to try to have as little disruption as possible. The only difference between what you suggest and what I suggest is a notice to the business that we see what you doing, its illegal, stop it now, we give you 6 months to fix it. That's all.

A segregated account requirement so we dont have to have this same conversation in the next 6 months

I am not arguing with you. That is what is going to happen. The government will give them a period of time to remit the taxes that were collected by them. Situations like this has gone on in this country for years. A retired civil servant told me that. What is happening now ,is measures are taken to increase the level of tax compliance and reduce the level of tax delinquencies.

Bahamians like you who have studied aboard, should know this.

The news a week ago said business would be halted, this article said business would be halted. @BigRocks said his business was halted... due to govt employee error. I am saying this herky jerky approach is disruptive to commerce. Put in place measures so it does not happen or happens in reduced cases. Just because they operated this way for years doesnt mean it's the best way. Segregate the money. If after doing all of that a company is still unable to remit payments, sure put locks on the door, they either should not be in business or should be adjusting their business model. I'm talking about the big players, small business are trickier