Incorrect, sorry. The Rules (refer p13 of *The Bahamas VAT Guide Version 4: December 23, 2014*) require prices to be shown VAT-inclusive. The Rules do not anywhere prohibit disclosure of the VAT component. This can be done - and is already being done - by retailers on pricetags like the one above, or in the most simplified form:

**Price: $10.75 *(includes VAT of $0.75)* **

This form of price labeling is not against the law.

Pricing items without the VAT shown doesn't make the items cheaper or more affordable. By contrast, a shelf price and individual item pricetag that states, for example:

**Item: $10.00 *+ VAT:* $0.75**

**Price: $10.75**

...tells everybody everything they need to know.

Retailers who are interested in transparency already do this. And for consumers who mistakenly think the VAT rate is 75% (i.e. 75 cents for every dollar, as this letter writer suggests), pricetags like this will quickly wake them up to reality.

That is usually how tax imposition by governmnent - any tax, any governmnent - works, yes.

Incidentally, the clarification on price controls and the removal of all exemptions resulted in a *single type/rate consumption tax model* ("pure VAT" with inclusive shelf prices). This is where any similarities with Canada ended. Business got what it asked for.

The people like what they see. With VAT-inclusive pricing they see it.

In the preliminary stages, when the tax policy was being designed, in the lead up to the White Paper publication, some businesses and business groups asked for VAT-*inclusive* pricing too. And once the design was completed, and all aspects weighed and measured, VAT-*inclusive* pricing was adopted. The policy has now been implemented and Bahamian shoppers know that **the price they see is the price they pay**.

Government cannot "hide" any future tax increase or decrease under either pricing system. The difference is consumers can see any increase or decrease on individual products advertised and priced VAT-inclusively with tags stating **Item price + VAT = Total price**

Under exclusive pricing, using your logic, they wouldn't know about it until they reached the checkout and were asked for a completely different amount if money than they were expecting to pay.

A small group of highly self interested retailers are making it up as they go along. The Bahamas has a tax system that requires honest, transparent shelf pricing - VAT inclusive - so that **the price you see is the price you pay**.

If retailers want to highlight the VAT portion of the final sale price, all they need to do is ticketprice their stock like this:

**"Price: $129.00 *(includes VAT of $9.00)*"**

No more hiding. No more trickery. From government, or from a small handful of self interested retailers for whom consumer protection is apparently a foreign concept.

What a ludicrous statement from someone with a European name who retails clothing from European brands made in European countries where VAT-inclusive pricing has been successfully operating for decades. How can the Bahamas Federation of Retailers be taken seriously when it wants pricing systems that relate to completely different tax policies than our own?

Thankfully many other local businesses already agree that the price customers see is the price customers pay, and have already priced everything VAT-inclusive in the interests of honesty and transparency.

Since when is almost the entire European continent (all with VAT-inclusive pricing) considered the third world? Have you ever travelled?

But we haven't copied either the USA or Canada. We didn't introduce their tax systems here. They use different consumption tax models to us. Ours is used in 140+ other countries, all with VAT-*inclusive* pricing.

You don't speak for "most Bahamians" nor the "majority" of anyone - you speak for a handful of local retailers wedded to a debate in which your preference was resoundingly rejected by both sides of politics. Its refreshing to see so many local retailers who have embraced the VAT-inclusive pricing laws already with no fuss, honest pricetags that show all information, and a positive attitude to working within the law.

Congratulations to those Bahamian businesses who care about consumers and who already agree that **the price you see is the price you pay**.