One of the issues is that the powers that be do not see the nastiness and or stupidness in their decisions. AS an example come down Bay on any day between 5.30 and 6pm when rush hour traffic is on and you will see an old dilapidated truck having all the days rubbish thrown on it. If there is liquid in the bags and it opens it will drip wherever the truck goes. At a guess the owner is probably connected and getting paid very handsomely for something that costs him 3 cheap guys and gas for a truck that has been paid years ago.

I think you mean every Private Mooring the Government SHOULD collect an annual fee. At a start they should do just that.

Not just Exuma, they been doing that in Abaco for years too.

They can go somewhere else if they want to save the $2 a day proposed, however it will cost them a lot more time and money to do that. They can stay in Florida if they want but i am sure it will cost them more to dock their. The fact is it can't be free for them to dock as this needs to be paid. Also we, like every other country, have laws about how much fish are allowed to be taken by this boaters. They must abide by them, i pray for the day the Goverement grows some and enforces the law by taking one of those mega yachts after they have over fished an area (just check the Facebook photos from the people on the boat, they are all breaking the law by catching too much).

Of course they should legalise it, and of course we won't. Too many of our fellow Bahamians are being condemned due to having a couple Oz when they were teenagers. If they say they need to ban marijuana as its bad, then ban alcohol, cigarettes, fast food etc etc.

No you don't understand VAT. If a business makes under $100,000 it is up to them to be VAT registered. IF they are they must charge VAT, but if they are not then they can't claim VAT back.
Yes if a business brings in inventory they must pay VAT on it then, however at the same time anything they sell they keep the VAT from the customer. The net of these two is then paid to the Government on the 21st (unless the business is due a VAT refund).

If it is true that they did not have insurance (and this can be found out within minutes), then there are serious issues at play, including a complete lack of enforcement of any rules. Yes this may well have been an accident, but there is a good chance that whatever the laws governing being in this business was not being followed, and there was no enforcement of these laws by the Government.

But he is right on the VAT effect. If a business is VAT registered there is no change to it's overall cost as VAT is paid by the consumer and the business can offset its input VAT against its output VAT and pays the Government the difference. If the business is not VAT registered then it has no output VAT and most pay all the input VAT as it can't claim it back

This is the same policy that the PLP did when VAT was introduced. They make a big noise about doing stuff to make sure merchants don't over price to make people think any increase is due to the merchant being greedy. As normal i am sure it would work. If i was a merchant i would consider pricing some of my items showing the total amount paid to Government broken down by VAT, Duty, Stamp Tax, Business License fee etc so people realise that a large part goes to Government.

If the savings are $2 million a month then they were earning $8,000 per month or $96,000 a year on average. I would assume the pay out will be a year or two's salary, taking two then it would be $48 million. Note i have used high end figures on most of these.