So the now "legal" web houses are complaining that the "illegal" web houses are taking advantage of the tax levy and need to be shut down. So before the PLP got paid off and made them "legal", what were they? I guess they were always operating within the law, then?

We gat all kinda mouth now that we legal and when there was an outcry to shut them down for years while they were operating "illegally" nothing was done. So now that they gat some "illegal" competition and it's now an issue????

You just can't make this stuff up! :-))

Yep. That's them in a nutshell. Everyone is in their pocket, particularly the Government officials. very very shady business people.

The only thing that gets their attention or stops them is a lawsuit - fact!

I read the letter from the Lyford Cay Association in its entirety and I do agree that the move to take away the word ‘seasonal’ from the Real Property Tax Act was not well thought out. The removal of the word allows a foreigner to be taxed at the full rate even if he’s only in occupation of his home for less than 3 months in a year. We all know that most of these persons are indeed ‘snowbirds’ and only in occupation of their homies for about 3 months or less (usually during the winter season) in any year. How do you now proceed to imply that they are in occupation for 6 months and then tax them at the full rate for multimillion dollar homes, when the act defines the home as a ‘second home’ which clearly means that they are residing elsewhere and this is not their main home.

In its haste to tax everything and everyone into oblivion Turnquest and his team clearly did not think this through and with the singlet stroke of the pen were seeking to kill the ‘second home market’ which attracts the wealthy to our shores.

Glad to see somebody woke up and reversed this.

Cas - I find your comments to be spot on.... nothing disturbing about it all. The only disturbing thing is how these people continue to rape the system and would do anything for a precious Bahamian passport all while continuing to swear allegiance to a country most have never been to or wouldn't go if they were paid to. Trying to evoke sympathy for papers and a newspaper that fuels it. You can't make this stuff up

Enough with the sympathy card. So she's entitled to expedited citizenship just because she is sick? There are other options. Go get a Haitian passport (which you are entitled to) or go to another country where you can legally travel for help. America is not the be all end all and further the Americans turn them down for visas because they know if they are this young they will migrate and not come back. What guarantee does she have anyway that the Americans will even give her a visa to travel even with a Bahamian passport. Sounds like they just want the passport.

The Government must use every resource to fight this. The man clearly has a stick in his.crack for illegals and has made it his life’s mission to frustrate law and order and process at every turn. Mind you he knows he doesn’t have a case but instead of using his talents to encourage the people to obey the law he looks for loopholes to help them to break it.

It’s madness and it has to be stopped!

My thoughts exactly! He played dirty in the Rony case and they need to do the same.

Bulldoze them and worry about his aZZ later!

Can't be winning if you still so-called stateless.

I too have been telling overseas clients NOT to send anything to The Bahamas by mail. '

I ordered a UK package in October, 2017 and did not get until May, 2018 and it was an important package. Also had another client send an envelope late January. The client waited until she had mailed it to tell me so I didn't have time to warn her. This is July and needless to say, it ain't reach yet!

It's pathetic!!

Don’t know how this will work as anyone who does any type of business in thr Bahamas knows that the Real Property Tax Department is by far one of the most disorganized and beauratic of any Government Department!

You literally have thousands of accounts that are in arrears, foreign and Bahamian-owned property that is behind by hundreds of thousands of dollars, some because the assessments are questionable and have yet to be dealt with in a reasonable and fair manner and you are now going to take all that confusion and add it to a light bill? Wow! Who came up with this brilliant idea?

So if I’m challenging my assessment as a business owner and I’m already back and forth with with no end on sight trying to get it rectified, you’re now going to add my challenged or deep-in-arrears assessment to my light bill and make me pay it monthly or my light is turned off?

What if I’m renting and my landlord is behind on his real property taxes? If he doesn’t pay is my light turned off because my landlord is delinquent?

Lots of questions for an already confused and beaureatic process.