When you have changed what Business license is made up of there will be an increase. Many things not included before now have business license, he of course will say no new taxes but by changing how the current taxes are done you have really brought in new taxes. In addition you have hit companies with making them pay on revenue they have not earned in 2024 as the fee is now on the year in question and not the year before. Of course there will be an increase in fees this way. the better test will be to see what happens in the year after that.

You would think this "meet me outside" so called financial secretary would know this and be transparent with people, rather than trying to spin this.

**Gonna be this church Saturday/Sunday talk, so: -- **Endocrine thyself, beforehand as to:** -- If your church, preaches against drinking alcohol and gambling.** -- How **should it impact** worshippers: -- **From working** for, **or serving on,** a government alcohol or gambling board, ministry, department, or even a **licensed betting shop:** -- Yes?

"*Persons who have the bully pulpit and so forth have to use it responsibly because when they talk down the economy, they impact everybody,” he argued.”They are not just impacting the Government, they’re impacting everybody because, eventually, somebody in Toronto who’s in charge of risk at one of the Canadian banks can say, you know what, the economy in The Bahamas isn’t doing so good. We’ll reduce the credit levels.*"

If someone in Toronto in charge of Credit Risk bases their decisions solely on what someone on a talk show says, they're *dumber* than us.

That's not how it works. They gather information, check legitimate news sources, examine world markets and trends, place all of that into their models, perform some analysis and then come up with an assessment.

Only in the Bahamas are knee jerk existential economic decisions made by talk show.

Mr. Simon seems ignorant.
Why are we still borrowing, Mr. Simon?
If you are transparent, why not tell us why a 10% increase in government collections is good for the Bahamian economy?
Mr. Simon, having listened to you, it is difficult to believe you, or think you have the brains to do any good for this country.
You are what is called a lackey.
You do not seem qualified to work in the private sector, so you ended up in government.
The Bahamas suffers as a result.

why does one need to pay tax before your do the business? are there other countries in the world where you need to prepay to play in business? What if the economy tanks and the business sucksass do they get a refund? Has anyone ever got a refund from the bah govt??

Only those connected get refunds. The rest can wait until they have got them selves into a position that their new tax obligation is more then the refund. If that is 10 years then so be it

Because they dont want the tax income to reflect reality. They want it to reflect their overly optimistic projections

Perhaps you should review again how the business licence tax is levied in this country. The first year of business' fees related to licencing is primarily registration and documentation matters. If you earn below the threshold you pay based on the prior year for the upcoming year and submit unaudited but accountant revenue attestation. If you are beyond the first first threshold then you may be required to submit audited reports by June 30 of the following calendar year in which the licence fees can/may be charged based on the variance. In terms of a refund, these are not directly outlined but based on a case by case basis, albeit quite difficult to achieve. Depending further on your turnover of the prior years you may be required to submit estimated account during the year which may provide a basis for licence fee adjustments same as the prior. In my years of experience I have not encountered someone paying license fees for the first year of business based upon projected revenues so the fees are primarily or in most cases based upon a past year of operation, so I am not sure where you determined your point of paying fees before you "play in business".

You are correct. In the first year it is a nominal fee. But the next year you then pay 0.75% (assuming sales below $5 million) for the year just gone and then 0.75% for the year to come. So in effect 2 years in one go

Most governments brag about reducing taxes. But this ja brags about sucking an extraordinary amount of taxes from the very machinery that keeps the country going - businesses, big and small.
I guess he couldn't survive in the private sector so brainless brave hired him to work in the biggest money pit we have.
And here I thought dodo birds went extinct.

TAXES, TAXES AND MORE TAXES.....Polictians need more money. WHERE DOS THE VAT GO???

When is gov going to pay it's small vendors. They owe me over $200,000.00 for more than a year and i a, not the only one

This is one uncontrollably angry and incompetent buffoon who needs to be put out to pasture forevermore.

Where is the cruise industry’s business licence breakdown? Downtown is suffering and paying for them while our politicians are having to buy bigger trousers and belts with ten more notches..