How can he keep a straight face and say that the lowest income people will spend 75% of their income on items that will now be 10% when he knows that the largest item in that is rent and that is not Vatable. then there is BPL which under $200 is not Vatable. He knows it will increase the expenses. I do agree the new regime is easier to process and will lead to more revenue, but stop lying about the effect on the lowest earners. Also if one of the reasons for the increase to 12% was for the exemptions, then bring it back to 7.5% without the exemptions.

You are not taking into account the VAT on the initial price so the VAT on the $4 milk will be $0.40. Over the year in your example that will be $14.5 million (if my math's are right). Though i highly doubt nearly all Bahamians go through 2 liters a week. In order to pay for it they feel the compliance will go to over 90% again which will lead to the extra revenue.

Nothing will come of this. These politicians always say stuff in the house of assembly and then don't produce any evidence to back them up. As long as people talk about it, they are happy.

Thats $550 million if there is no growth in the economy. Assuming they expect the economy to grow it will be a lot more then that. Only a couple of ways that can be done, and i assume one of them is income tax. Not sure they will be able to raise the amount needed with income tax unless they start at a very low rate of income, even then this would be hard due to the population size.

They aren't plugging the hole though. They admit the hole will get bigger, but this will be covered by increased spending and those 0% items being 10% now. But there is nothing in it about plugging the hole.

Of course its reckless as they have just told the credit ratings agents we are in an even worse shape then we said before. But it was politics. FNM did the same to PLP last time with their $700 million unknown liabilities. SO i guess if PLP lose the next election we will hear $1.3 billion unknown next time.

The extra spending will not cover the 2% loss, the extra 10% on Breadbaskets and others will cover it. Only the wealthy have extra money sitting around that they may then decide to spend, but then i doubt the 2% bothers them that much.

So we are $1 billion worse then we thought and we have not enacted any major revenue programs or expense reduction programs to pay for this. I reckon IMF maybe starting to book their tickets and hotel stay soon.

And all along the Bahamian people still are lumped with a power company that charges very high fees and yet can't keep power on. They have known for a long time we needed major changes at BPL, but as the gravy train was so great they just dragged on any changes until Government changes, as they know they can then go through the whole process again.

Not sure why they say thats why he is in Rome. I looked it up and that meeting was held in Miami over 10 days ago. I have no idea why he is Rome but it appears the Caricom meeting is not correct.