We are probably the only country where our own government officials, for short-sighted personal and political gain, talk down and have a more negative pessimistic outlook of our future prospects, our economy and values than even the most ardent foreign critic of the Bahamas. The foreign regulatory bodies like the FATF and OECD do not even have to write their own reports on us they can just quote our government negative utterances to support blacklisting and other punitive measures. Our government belies the popular saying that a fisherman does not call his fish stink. It is an unbelievable display of the lack of leadership, patriotism, maturity and vision of our government and government officials.

Several weeks ago our Prime Minister went on foreign soil, yes foreign soil, to tell the world that corruption in the Bahamas costs our economy hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In this article there appear to be a clear case of this same corruption in practice for all to see and we all talk around it because of who is involved. Are we saying that the Immigration office who takes $1,000 to expedite a work permit application is surely corrupt but a government appointed official, say the chairperson of Town Planning engaging in corrupt self-interest decision making that prevents and delays a $25 million investment and put hundreds of Bahamians out of work is not corrupt so that their project right next door can have an advantage to market. Is this not the epitome of the corruption the PM was really referring to?

We may or may not like Mr. Bastian, but using public office for self-interest personal gain is corruption plain and simple and it is just plain wrong and unlawful. Today it is Mr. Bastian but tomorrow it could be you or your family.

Your post is evidence of our F average. You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Please do some research and try to understand before just posting nonsense.

You are either a mischief maker of the highest order spreading poisonous vitriol and misinformation or a paid useful idiot and troll. CIBC actions have absolutely nothing to do with the Bahamas and everything to do with their overall Caribbean business model. Stop it! You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

Yes we do love our country, faults and all!!

It is not that simple. It is important to understand that Blacklisting, De-Risking and FATCA etc are different parts to the same G7 strategy. It is a multi-front isolation strategy on the offshore customers, market participants and regulatory/compliance requirements and costs designed to channel offshore activities to these jurisdictions. Blacklisting is designed to put maximum pressure on the international financial institutions which operate in the Blacklisted jurisdiction which would then place enhanced risk on customers doing business with those organizations. Therefore, financial institutions operating in a blacklisted country will attract to it more regulatory compliance costs and a heightened reputational and regulatory risk profile which would then cause their customers, who may be happy otherwise, to make some tough decisions about whether to accept this risk.

Our response must be much more comprehensive and we must look at whether the tax haven model is still a viable model given the current market conditions. Ultimately, we must get serious about creating structural underpinnings to diversify our economy and our ability to drive endogenous GDP growth and job creation.

Finally a sensible analysis of the root cause situation. What is somewhat disappointing is the FNM response/approach that the EU/OECD strategy was unknown or unknowable because this has only been going on for almost 20 years. The bottom line is that the tax rate in these EU countries cannot be raised much higher without placing a drag on their GDP and job creation so their only viable strategy is to expand their tax base and optimize tax collection from EU citizens and business activities. Expectations of fairness or a level playing field is naïve. This EU strategy will persists until we change our tax model with respect to offshore participants and activities. This was my primary concern about the Enterprise Bill touted for its international tax incentives for residents or citizens of the EU.

It pains me to use such strong language but your posts so deeply affronts facts, common sense and empirical evidence that I can only conclude that your ashamedly espousing of these views suggest that you are either wholly indifferent to fact and reason or else you are intentionally mischievous and thus a misinformation troll. Do you realize that this blacklisting relates to tax evasion/avoidance schemes used to target persons from EU countries. Schemes like the Enterprise Bill. What does that have to do with local webshops? My primary point is that we must raise the level of our discourse and debate and stop talking Shi_. Free speech is not license to talk Shi_.

Banker I must concur with your LOL on the above post. Utter silly and unhelpful talk.

Your entire post is absolute nonsense and totally unrelated to the above! Did you even read the article above?

We will continue to have this problem as long as you and others remain stupid and refuse to avail yourselves to basic facts and form rational opinions. What in the hell webshops have to do with the Bahamas as a tax haven? Cmon man lets pick up a damn book and begin to educate ourselves. These people serious and they coming for us and ignorance is not bliss!