The Bahamas government is spot on target with this RPT increase.

Bahamians need to stop aiding and abetting foreigners from avoiding income tax in the Country of thier citizenship while falsely claiming phoney residency in the Bahamas just because you own a house.

Example. A Canadian who is taxed by Canada on his residency and not citizenship buys a condo out west, does not live in it except for a couple of months in the winter and then uses his Bahamian residency to avoid income tax in Canada. It’s unfair tax competition. No wonder we are always getting black listed.

To add insult to injury this same Canadian then puts that condo on air b & b and rents it out with no hotel licenses in competition to small Bahamian hotel owners who are catching hell with higher taxes and VAT.

The government also fails to see the connection of the webshops as the primary financial activity of the poor, leading to a decline in bank branches and services and the increase in the use of cash for daily transactions leading to an increase in robberies.

Have you tried to make a bank deposit recently? It’s almost impossible. Deposit the funds at a webshops and it’s almost effortless.

The central bank is asleep at the wheel working feverishly at thier new multi million dollar building.

There just seems to be no hope. Imagine what it feels like to be a young man growing up in Bain Town with no hope, no light, no water, no education, drugs and webshops and liquor everywhere.

Bahamians need to stop looking to our leaders and every little stupidity they spout out of thier mouths on a daily basis.

They have no solutions for us only more pain caused by crime, sorry and ever increasing taxes.

Crime has its roots in multiple ills including and most importantly morality. Webshops, carnival, drinking, theft, government corruption, lack of work ethic, minimal nuclear family formation amongst the other ills we discuss are to blame.

The police are simply overwhelmed and can solve nothing for whatever reason. There is no dialogue with the Bahamian people on the breakdown in the rule of law which has been going on for decades starting in the early 1970s under the PLP culture.

Minnis, or more importantly Turnquset believes that simply raising another $1 billion through VAT increases and Webshops taxes is a panacea for a dis-functional Government to resolve all our problems. At best they are spreading false hope, at worse they are distroying commerce that will escalate crime as more people become unemployed due to the enormous tax burden.

I think it’s too late for the Bahamas.

Most of these foreigners are renting out their homes to Air b&b, distroying neighborhoods out west with people coming and going all the time.

I say tax them at the higher rate along with the webshops. Dese rich people need to pay more as we is broke broke.

Sheeprunner12. It may employ 50 people but gambling is a non productive enterprise. Simply taking money from one group of people and giving it to another set of people provides zero value.

Look at the gambling addicts, the lives distroyed and the false hopes raised.

Long Islands population has shrunk from 6,500 to 2,400 over the past 10 years. Young people are leaving and not returning, fewer babies are being born, 50% of the population is over 65, the people are getting poorer.

Webshops have definitely contributed to the decline in the wealth of the island with over $500,000 a month of net earnings of the webshops being taken out of the community and flown to Nassau. In Nassau the government gets it cuts (almost as bad as Brutus’ betrayal of Christ) and the webshops owners taking thier winnings and investing it in affluent communities in the west and paradise island.

It’s the people’s time to get poorer alright.

The regulated gaming industry won't go underground but Brave unfortunately does have a point. If the tax is too high then it spawn a lucrative unregulated industry.

The barriers to entry to the numbers business is low. A cloud server running the numbers coupled will a Cell Phone App is all that's needed for an entrepreneurial young person to get started. Without the taxes and regulations their payouts will be higher.

Also, with regulated banks closing down branches everyday Gaming patrons will soon move to electronic wallets once they see how easy it is to set up without the need of a bank account or exchange control approval or standing in any line anywhere in the Bahamas waiting for the government, the banks or the webshops to piss you off.

I think patrons will hate having to give the government 5% of their wager and then another 5% of the spinning winnings.

Also with 50% taxes the payouts are gonna get pretty lousy even for the most addicted gamblers.

Once the numbers business goes global and in the cloud then the patron will be free of the government's heavy taxes, reglations, the inability to transfer your winnings, the bahamas and listening to the webshop owners crying all day every day and they will be able to play numbers in peace with great returns.

Webshops are like a hydra, the more you try to control and regulate it in a corrupt society the more tenticals it grows. The peoples voice through the referendum should have been heeded in the first place.

The web shops appeared to be more powerful than law enforcement before their industry was legalized. The web shops were able to survive and flourish before legalization.

The web shops are more powerful than the people as witnessed by the country voting no in a nationwide referendum on web shop legalization and web shops were still legalized.

I think the web shops will now demonstrate that they are more powerful than the legislative (Parliament) and executive (cabinet) arms of government when the increased tax rates are set aside by the courts.

The web shops are already in every settlement throughout the bahama chain of islands and are now building out west in the most affluent areas of the country. Thousands of bahamians are now addicted to web shops gambling.

How can you build a nation on this foundation?

You can't.

The court will simply put in place an injunction or stay in the implementation of the new web shop tax increases while the merits of the case are argued over the next 3 to 5 years.

With the high cost of the QCs government has already employed doing battle on other accused irregularities and massive forensic audit bills of government corporations I doubt the government has the funds or will power to battle the web shop industries which now have very deep pockets to level the battle with the government.

To bad the people don't have a deep pocket to fight the unjust 12% VAT tax coupled with government waste and allegations of corruption are an unnatural burden on the people and could also be set aside.

Dear Socrates and Sheeprunner, please have a little empathy for the people of Pinders and Lewis Yard. For almost 100 years they have been exploited.

First by the GBPA, back in the day they could not stay in Freeport after dark. They were shut out of the good jobs given to foreigners.

Next by the oil companies placed right next to their homes. Polluting the air and water table.

Then by Goombay summer and now Carnival and the corruption of the PLP. Corrupting their moral fiber. Unwed teenage mothers having babies for multiple fathers. 1 in 50 now have aids.

Then by drugs during the drug trafficking 70's and 80's. While the government turned a blind eye.

Then by terrible schools. Average math grade is D-. Even the schools had to be moved from the settlement.

Followed by alcohol and now Bahamian made cigarettes...causing cancer and alcoholism.

Then by web shops on every corner taking what ever money is left.

Through out the years there have been devastating hurricanes. The people of Pinder's Point and Lewis Yard haven't recovered from the last 2 hurricanes. Many of the housed have not been rebuilt.

I encourage each Bahamian to go to Freeport and drive through this devasted area and see the blight for themselves. Then go to West End and see the blight of the water front. Essentially bars and webshops left standing.

Now Minister of the Environment Romauld Ferreira tells the residents to hire a QC at the cost of $1 million to fight the oil cartel???

There are no jobs in this settlement, there is no hope in this settlement, the government and big business have abandoned them.

The webshops, alcahol, cigarettes and oil industry are exploiting them.

I really feel sorry for them. They have been offered no hope, they have been offered no help.

Is this what the Bahamas has become?

God is not pleased.