@DawesThere is no property tax that is levied on Bahamian owed land in the family islands.The problem this country has is there is no land registry and many times ,the sale of land is not recorded. It was recommended from 1963,that land registry be set up. The last iIngraham administration drafted laws to address this situation. Both administration since then,has not touched it. This current situation is a boon for lawyers. They make plenty plenty money of it.

@This is Ours. of course, you did not mention the high level of tax avoidance and evasion. Over 700 million owed in unpaid property taxes as of 2021. Those problems go back to the era of the late Sir Lynden Pindling. Now the chickens are coming home to roost,

A founding father of the Free National Movement and it's first party chairman. Bahamian history is not really taught in the schools here. When persons like Dr. Donaldson dies, history dies with them. He should have written his memoirs. He knew some interesting things about the inner workings of the PLP in 1966. He had a very interesting conversation with Clement Maynard when they were both working at PMH.

My mother thought highly of him and his brothers as doctors. He was for a time her physician.
Rest in peace

St. Pauli Girl Beer and Beck's Beers are brands that are owned by InBev. InBev is a Belgian beer conglomerate and is rival to Heineken ,a Dutch conglomerate. Heineken is the majority shareholder in Commonwealth Brewery. They funded and had a close relationship with Burns House. Burns House purchased and absorbed several liquor wholesalers. After doing that, they became the exclusive distributor of Heineken products. Those products included Kalik, Heineken, Guniness and Vita Malt. They stopped the importation and sale of InBev products in their stores

This is what happens when you have monopolies. Monopolies reduce consumers choices, stifle innovation and sometimes keep prices artificial high. Burns House was the leading liquor wholesaler in the Bahamas. They also operate a large number of liquor stores. Heineken through Commonwealth Brewery purchased them and rebranded them as 700 Wines and Spirits. If the Bahamas was a sensible progressive country, the country would have passed anti- trust laws. The Americans did that over a hundred years ago when Theodore Roosevelt was president.

Marlon Johnson speaks with a forked tongue .He was right there when the FNM government zero -rated those bread basket food stuffs. Now he is saying that is the wrong tax policy. Some body with a real PHD said to me, he did not know what he was doing. The person said to me, he is just a cell phone salesman. All the programs he cancelled at the Ministry of Finance, he had to restart.H e never answered the questions that were posed to him about the 2018 budget.Those questions were posed by a former senior FNM cabinet minister who served as Minister of Finance.

Male academic underachievement is not discussed or researched much in the Bahamas. Caribbean academics like the late Rex Nettleford and Dr,Errol Miller have written about it. A white Bahamian said this, Sociology is not studied in the Bahamas like in the rest of the english speaking Caribbean.The late Edward Seaga, a prime minister of Jamaica was a trained sociologist

@This is Ours. You simply do not understand much. The officials at the Ministry of Finance do not live in a bubble like you. I personally do not care much about the Financial Secretary.Some body told me several years ago what was happening and will happen. The Bahamas is on a slippery slope to bankruptcy and the IMF is pressuring this country to deal with it's deficits. The country can not borrow as it use too. So this government like the previous government has to increase tax collection. It is simply by what method. I do not support this rate of tax increase. But i know what they are desperately trying to do.

The two main pillars of this economy have a high level of foreign ownership and control. So a lot of the profits earned here are remitted to the home country of the owners. Also the main segment of tourism, cruise ,there is a low amount of expenditure by visitors in this country. Cruise visitors only spend around $ 84.00 compared to $2,700 for stop-over visitors. Most bahamians do not understand what that disparity means.

There is no high level of local inputs in the tourism industry compared to other caribbean countries. The level of linkages to the rest of the economy to the tourism economy is low. Some one told me on a visit to Barbados,all of the furniture in the hotel room they stayed in was made by a local factory in Barbados.

There is no real attempt to export Bahamian made products to the Bahamian diaspora outside the Bahamas. Compare this to Jamaica. I have seen quite a bit of Jamaican made products in south Florida. Busta sodas, Red Stripe Beer,and HTB Bakery products.

The Bahamas is a hard country to live and work in for some people.High levels of corruption,nepotism, victimization and crime is a turn off for some Bahamians. The utilities and infrastructure here is horrible. A lot of talented Bahamians have left this country and taken their skills and energy elsewhere A relative of mine told me what her son said to her. He told her he saw no economic future in this country for him

The Bahamas has the same problem like so many countries. Based on how the economy is structured, it benefits certain groupings. There is growing, widespread social and economic inequalities in this country. That is being increased by poor government policies and poor choices by individual Bahamians.

Most journalists in the Bahamas aspire to be public relations professionals.That is where the money is. So they are not going to ruffle feathers.The media here is very pliable to economic pressures.

Journalism in the Bahamas was behind it's regional counterparts in the big four English speaking caribbean countries.That was the opinion of a late senior politician.He regularly subscribe to and read their newspapers .He did that to follow up on developments in those country.

The VAT was put in place in 1973 when Edward Heath was prime minister. The same year the Bahamas became independent and the UK joined the European Economic Community. Mrs.Thatcher was a cabinet minister then and not prime minister then.Labour and and as well as the Liberal Democrats have made no attempt to repeal it