Is this even legal? What is the point of having a limited corporation if the individual share holders private actions can affect the company? A corporation is an entity unto itself. This is like the government denying you a business license because your brother or someone you are affiliated with owes taxes.

Join WTO and compete on a world stage with what? Phones that do not work, internet that is shoddy, unreliable, expensive power supply, and just a lack of all basic reliable infrastructure. Commercial banks that are basically loan sharks and check cashing centers, and a government that is a burden on the back of every Bahamian. What a joke!

If your grossing under 100,000 you cant charge VAT. So all your VAT expenses are not recoverable. Since most rental homes are under 100,000 gross they are going to introduce the room tax again basically on those rentals. So if a hotel is grossing under 100,000 (practically impossible I know just trying to figure out the warped logic here) do they then have to collect the room tax in place of charging VAT? Does anyone else find this all slightly insidious?

Sad thing is the hotels who are pushing for this will see no change in their bookings because the airbnb people are a totally different market/tourist and this will only damage that market and will not help the hotels. And if I have to depend on bozo out to lunch, picking up my child from school, printer broken down, give me 10 dollars, don't know what a fire detector is, I will be there tomorrow (which never comes) government bull*sit then f**k it all.

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Yes for many years allot these home rentals were running under the radar and not paying anything and this was wrong. This was one of the reasons hotel room TAX was abolished and VAT was implemented. So they are not getting away anymore since all their expenses have VAT attached which they cannot claim as a credit. Their guests also are paying more when they payed little because, everything they do and buy now in the Bahamas has VAT attached. The couple extra dollars this regulation will garnish will do more harm than good. To now go and basically re implement room tax on private rentals is wrong.

We are well on the way to go further down the pole on the ease of doing business totem.

This is not good. These under taxed areas was what VAT was for. The people staying in these homes pay VAT on everything electricity, water, food etc. where little to nothing was paid before. Most rental homes do not earn more than 100k to register for VAT to receive credits and who wants to deal with government office B/S to just supplement offset the cost of maintaining/owning a property.

So private rentals will be taxed more than hotels because they cannot receive VAT credits and hotels get duty free and property tax free exemptions under the hotel encouragement act. So it would be like if VAT was implemented and room tax was not abolished.

I am a Bahamian who inherited some property and there are 2 little cottages on it that was used to help give my grandmother a few extra dollars before she passed and now helps to maintain this generation property. I rent them on Airbnb for one. If the government wants airbnb to charge an extra tax when people book and remit it to the government while I find this not right, it would be tolerable.

If these regulations mean I have to register with this government office and that government office and pay this fee and that fee. Have inspections conducted. Deal with all the government people out to lunch, picking up their children, broken down printers, phones that are not answered and the circus that is the Bahamas government then I will just shut the damn rental units down. The couple dollars I make to help upkeep the place would be no where near worth it.
So the maid who cleans has less work, taxi driver bringing people here has less work, rental car/boat company less rentals, boat tours less people, restaurants and grocery stores less people buying food, home repair people electricians, plumbers etc. less work. Government less money because no VAT on water, electricity, no departure tax. no VAT on my upkeep expenses, food and everything else. I imagine I am not the only one who feels this way. This is a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot.

Do not get rid of Bahamasair. I am a pilot and when Sky first started I thought well here is what seems to be a decent airline and I need to give them a chance so the government can stop spending money on Bahamasair. Then there were two engine fires coming into Marsh Harbour airport. Then they crashed and destroyed one of their planes at Marsh Harbour. Lucky for me before any of this happened I stopped flying them because on my last flight with them my seat was not fastened to the floor correctly so it moved around and I thought to myself if something this obvious and wrong is going on how bad must the stuff be I cannot see? I am sorry to say it was my last time flying sky. They always seem to be in such a rush as to sacrifice safety.

Freeport has long been a gateway for items to be smuggled into the Bahamas evading customs duties. Then transported to the other Islands outside of the port area. Customs enforcement in general not just on Freeport has been the weak link in duty collections, port area smuggling, and is still the weak link in VAT administration.