Or they could do what other islands are doing, like Abaco and Exuma with the 2nd home owners which seems to be working. Or does Freeport want the government to do it for them? Of course that would be hard as you also don't want the Government to be involved up there. Why don't 1-2,000 people (or however many needed) get together and buy the hotel and open it up?

For over 30 years the western world (where most of the offshore funds come from) has been cracking down on the idea of offshore TAX havens. This is where people put money to evade the tax man in their home country. We have known this and yet still sell our offshore industry as being tax free. What we should have done is make sure we offered the best financial advice so people would want to put their money with us. In the EU it is now getting to the point that not paying taxes by doing schemes that are fully legal is being frowned upon, which means these nations will get stricter and stricter on their own citizens using offshore centres. If we don't change the model we can only continue to hope those in Latin America never catch on to the laws the EU etc keep passing, as that will be our only growth opportunity,

Never going to happen.

And yet they took over a year and then some to start whilst they waited to get the approvals from Goverement. Guess they should have done a Nygard and just done it.

maybe as the hotel is owned by a private entity and the purchaser would be a private entity there is not much they can do except get the two together and offer incentives. If you are so sure the hotel would work why don't you buy it?

Its a start, and hopefully more will follow. Whilst it may initially not help ,many unemployed Grand Bahamians it will help in the long run, as another industry is now set up over here that Bahamians can work in without having to leave. It has taken over 15 years for Freeport to get to where it is today (and some would say 30 years), so it will not get out of the quagmire it finds itself in over night. But if they can get this one and another 5-10 it will be a start, and also get that hotel re-opened then things would be looking up.

So you would say no to facebook coming as they are only just over 10 years old. That is the nature of the tech industry, a lot of them are young startups. Which is also why they can move very quickly as they do not have historical roots to deal with.

It could be companies have realised that allowing the person to leave so they could keep it quiet is not worth it, and they now would rather charge then stay quiet.

Although some may be Bahamain born they are not all. A number of them will be residents from places like Lyford Cay etc.

We have known for years that the OECD would continue to get stricter with us, Mr. Smith would know this from when he was at the Central bank. As always we wait until the proverbial hits the fan and then go too far in trying to get back in the good books. If people who were in charge for the last 20 plus years had been more proactive (this includes Mr. Smith) then we wouldn't be in the position we are in now.