Shut up Birdie. Stop trying to tear down good ideas. You are defending the problem and never supporting a solution.

Nobody outside of the Bahamas ever thinks of our lawyers or legal system unless they have the nightmare of having to do anything with it. Stop thinking we are something special, we aren't. The sooner Bahamians understand that, the sooner we can start fixing all of our problems.

Are you going to keep rambling on forever on this thread with your nonsense? You sound like Birdie right now!

Bahamian are being obliterated because they keep believing the lying scumbags who are suppose to be running this country. Blame a failed education system with no hope for the future and the theft of all of our tax money by sleazy politicians.

If you are blaming immigrants for our problems instead of realizing that Bahamians have brought this country to the broken down state that it is.

VAT at 15% and customs duty at 0% would reduce the costs overall. Current duties cost consumers and businesses far more than a 15% VAT ever would.

By the way, I very much agree with everything you said Baron, just wanted to clarify the VAT point.

Proper business tax reform. Currently businesses are taxed on turn-over (revenue), which is a terribly regressive form of tax. Businesses should be taxed on profits. Currently, if a business losses money, they still have to pay the government tax money.

By taxing profits, you encourage businesses to reinvest in capital and employees. Having high volume with low margins is penalized due to tax on turnover. By taxing profits at say a 10% flat tax, then companies are able to lower prices to increase volume and in turn lower acquisition costs due to more buying power.

Taxes should incentivise investment, which leads to higher employment and more money moving through the economy.

On the topic of taxes. All land should be taxed, including vacant, developing, and low value properties. Currently vacant land owned by Bahamians are free to hold onto the land without any incentive to develop, improve, or sell the land. There is no incentive to remove derelict buildings, or to provide capital improvement to low value and low quality properties. If people have to pay taxes on properties that are not bringing in any income, then they will rethink what why they are simply sitting on it. This should also cause a rise in the offer for sale of vacant and derelict properties and at more accessible prices and therefore allowing more Bahamians to participate in property ownership and encourages investment

Finally, taxes must be collected. There is no excuse for having over $600MM in real property tax in arrears.

On a separate improvement, the government needs to bring itself into the 21st century of technology. No more hand written licences or passports. Our country needs to be digitized. Updating government working to be totally computer based will dramatically lower costs and accessibility of services on out islands. It will encourage investment in training and put a great importance on education as people can see a direct result of learning modern skills. Customs, Policing, Tourism, Road Traffic, Medical, NIB, and Social Services will all see far greater efficiency and provide huge improvement to services.

VAT is not paid only when a business has sold the imported item. The importer pays the VAT on the cost of the item and on the customs duty. When the item is purchased by the consumer, the customer pays the VAT on the final price. The business then remits the difference to the government (Customer VAT - Import VAT = Payment to the government).

The tax itself is pass through, but the actual mechanics o it mean that the importer pays it and then gets it back from the customer. So he importer is still out that money until the product is sold.

What are you going on about now?

You add as much to these conversations, as sand adds to lube.