The FNM shut down the leaks by cutting the Bahamas negotiation team to two people:
Laing and Winder.
meanwhile every other Caribbean country has dozens working on their countries positions,
EU countries have their own hundreds each separate from the EU Govt with thousands!
Hit the Caribbean country websites and the IMf, WTO websites to find out what we have signed onto!
At least they publish their intent!
Our fools do not even Gazette anything any more.

Where has it been said that existing home purchases will not attract VAT?
Legal fees will, on any title searches and conveyances but the seller could also be liable if the sale exceed the $100K threshold.
More missing information from Government.

Let us face the facts:
We have spent ourselves as a Government and Country, into a deficit we cannot service by our usual methods.
Tourism and Foreign Direct Pillaging/skimming.
We as a people believed the promises of the amateurs and incompetents we elected.
Most of us have benefited either directly via political connection or party affiliation or indirectly at one time or the other.
In the good times, we wasted, borrowed and frittered our good fortunes.
In the hard times, we borrowed more.
We the People are now being forced to pay for our folly by the big multinational bureaucracies funded by our economic partners and fully agreed to by our successive Government administrations.
The Government produces nothing, save more ways to spend money we do not have.
Even while touting the VAT as a way to cover our recurrent and National debt,
they are scheming new and more onerous ways to spend the "new" income.
Do not forget what the IMF did to Jamaica, with Jamaican Government administrations complicit and full cooperation.
The more the Government "gives" the less there is to share.
The private sector will contract with VAT implementation,
most will try to fly under the threshold,
the Government will become more heavy handed than they are already.
The people will pay.

Have no fear Mr. Moss,
Income tax is coming also.
It is their "fall back" just in case.
We are about to pay the price for electing fools,
or standing quiet while fools were elected.
Look at the promises yet unfunded and unfulfilled,
"Free" Health care, Jobs aplenty,
We have been basking in the lies and deceit for decades,
why stop believing now?

This shows that while switching to an internal consumption tax,
The Ministry of Finance still has a border mentality.
Not withstanding the reams of paperwork submitted to Bahamas customs in quadruplicate already on Import documentation, and the rate at which they "Lose" or cannot find it,
this is shaping up to create a national Stagnation day!!
As for Bahamas Customs "investigating" anything,
good luck, but woe betide the poor company subjected to one!!
They make mounds out of mole hills and miss the mountain!!

All very real and valid points, no matter what the IMF has fed our bureaucrats.

Unusually concise for you Gilbert! :)
Our Governments have been singing for their supper in foreign courts for a few decades!
A purely theoretical "Experiment" with real consequences is being conducted here.
Unfortunately, the detrimental consequences will be experienced by everyone aside the Experimenters.
This is where our slack, indifferent, insular, superiority has sabotaged us.
Instead of getting the "former colony conversion to independence" right,
we dropped right into the oft traveled road to serfdom.

Most will generally return to the cash based economy that we have only recently started moving away from via ATM convenience and online Bill paying.
Also, well over 80% of licensed businesses can claim to fall under the $100k threshold, leaving 20% to become registered as merchants.
The service aspect is going to get hit hard,
but I doubt you'll see lawyers or accountants working from the back of a truck like sub contractors, plumbers and electricians do.
We must understand that the Bahamian Government, no matter the Political party,
has a master far more threatening to them than disgruntled Voters.

Correct Reality_Check.
Anyone can go to the IMF website to see who is dictating these bureaucratic idiots every move.
and when the revenue stream from economic activity dries up,
They will go after banked wealth, self justified that they have rights to it.
Hence TIEA agreements with all countries that Bahamians may have stashed funds/assets in.
The information is accessible now, for future reference.

"Tax neutral" is disingenuous at best, a known lie at worst:
If their revenue is expected to increase, it is coming from somewhere/someone.
Unfortunately the Government and the bureaucrats have done all the theoretical work with no actual logistics of implementation.
Local restaurants will have to remit VAT at a higher % than hotel restaurants.
VAT on supplies and services will get built into price increases.
This ill advised fiasco will trickle up, down left and right before the dust settles.
Dust does not remit Taxes!
The harder the line taken by ministry of finance heads will result in harder resistance/non compliance.
However they no longer serve the People, they serve the imf, oecd, wto, ilo,
so we had better wake up quickly and demand answers.