I whole-heartedly agree that we are all just playing pretend with our modern economic system, as no nation is ever going to pay their debt off, but the key difference between us and the first world countries with regards to debt is why it is taken on. First world countries will assume debt to invest into public infrastructure, development programmes, and such areas that will produce a benefit for them. The Bahamas takes on debt to pay government worker salaries. We literally get no benefit from the debt that we take on.

We are like an unemployed single mother that pays all her bills with a credit card (and somehow gets the limit upped regularly), while the first world countries are the responsible adult that takes out a loan to buy a home or invest into a business.

What percentage of our GDP is made up of offshore banking/financial services anymore? The industry has only been in decline since the early 2000s and surely cannot be worth further destroying our economy over.

What is the income tax rate in the Caymans? As a far superior offshore center than us, will they be adding an income tax? I cringe every time I see some IMF or OECD talking head/report compare us to Jamaica, Barbados, or anywhere in the Caribbean really. We are not even located Caribbean, and none of those countries are examples of what we should be aspiring to become. They are third world crap holes to be rather frank. The Bahamas is the third wealthiest nation in the Americas, but would be fifth if the Caymans and Bermuda were independent nations. Those are who we should be looking to for guidance and inspiration.

The Bahamian economy was explicitly designed around being a no tax jurisdiction. What else is going to attract permanent residents here? Income taxation is done on the basis of residency in most parts of the world, excluding the United States (who does give an exemption of up to 100k for non-resident citizens though), so how many economic PR holders are going to remain when we jack an income tax on them for living here? Why do you think Sean Connery lived in the Bahamas before he passed (among many other well known individuals). Furthermore, over half of the Bahamian population makes less than 20k a year, how can you expect them to pay out of their meager earnings? You will drive the Bahamian working class further into poverty by doing so. Not to mention that the informal economy is still huge here.

My God, I can already see the horror of having audits used as a tool of political persecution. The Shane Gibson fiasco(s) will look like child's play. Income tax is an absolutely horrible idea all around, and anyone proposing it needs to realize that we just can't do it. Our economy was explicitly structured around being a no to low tax jurisdiction, and any attempts to change that will horrifically break it.

We can have VAT at 100%, corporate tax at 50%, and having everyone give their entire income to the government, and we will still be hearing about new taxes to "bring down the national debt". We will soon have to pay tax to own a TV like the United Kingdom.

We don't have a taxation problem, we have a government spending problem.

The Bahamas survived for 40 years without VAT. When the UBP left government in 1967, there was a 10 million dollar surplus (adjusted for inflation, close to 80 million in today's value). We don't have a taxation problem, we have a government spending problem.

Income tax was originally supposed to be for the wealthy 1% when it was first introduced in America as well. Look at how that turned out.