Bahamas, March 31, 2017 – Nassau – The Bahamas now knows where the VAT money went says Prime Minister Perry Christie delivered on his promise to explain the VAT collection and allocation. Residents and guests of The Bahamas are healthy consumers as the report revealed that not only did VAT exceed performance expectations, t it was over a billion dollars collected in the 7.5% tax on goods and services.
PM Perry Christie, who is the Minister of Finance said that VAT drew 1.14 billion dollars and that the Customs Department collected $415 million of that money over two years. While VAT did bring in more than half The Bahamas’ national budget, there were some offsets because of its existence. The Prime Minister explained that tax breaks and duty rate cuts and eliminations did cause some losses in other revenue areas and that net impact on revenues cost the country almost three quarters of the VAT earnings; quoted at $756 million.
Due to this huge loss to government revenue in other areas, VAT was able to contribute and 30% of earnings to the lost revenue. The country’s leader said 40% of the VAT money was used to reduce the deficit and the remaining 30% went to general expenditures. VAT also had to refund some of its subscribing companies, that happened to the tune of $20 million revealed the report presented Wednesday in the House of Assembly.
The Prime Minister did a better job in his presentation than his junior finance minister, Michael Halkitis who many agreed mucked it up at the PLP National Convention in January; the PM shared some of the programmes or elements of country affairs that benefited directly from VAT money. “Since the implementation of VAT, the government has hired an additional 99 police officers at $1,782,000 per annum; it has hired an additional 166 Defense Force officers at $2,988,000 per annum; it has employed 347 more teachers and education support staff at $8,400,500 per annum; and it has hired 103 additional doctors and health professionals at $2,932,550 per annum.”
While the National Budget, according to reports released by the Central Bank reveal that the deficit has ballooned and there is criticism for the Administration not exercising enough austerity measures to save money, Mr. Christie said his PLP Administration is spending less. I quote the statement by the PM, “Today we have reduced this excess of spending over earnings to an average of less than $400 million and excluding natural disasters to an average of less than $250 million. Therefore debt accumulation has decelerated.”
You can read the presentation of PM Perry Christie in full at MagneticMediaTV.com.
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