{"id":35583,"date":"2013-05-14T08:41:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T12:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=35583"},"modified":"2013-05-14T08:41:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T12:41:19","slug":"vat-crapshoot-brings-recession-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/05\/vat-crapshoot-brings-recession-concerns","title":{"rendered":"VAT ‘Crapshoot’ Brings Recession Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Determining Value-Added Tax\u2019s (VAT) impact on the private sector is \u201ca complete crapshoot\u201d until the Government provides more details, a leading businessman fearing it could push the Bahamas back into recession if mishandled.<\/p>\n

Robert Myers, who heads companies including Caribbean Landscape and VTrade, told Tribune Business it was impossible for Bahamian businesses to assess how VAT would impact them without first seeing the accompanying legislation and revised Tariff Schedule<\/p>\n

Emphasising that he was not speaking in his capacity as the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation\u2019s (BCCEC) vice-chairman, Mr Myers said there were \u201ctoo many unknowns\u201d – even though VAT\u2019s supposed implementation is now less than 14 months away.<\/p>\n

Having attended several meetings between private sector organisations and the Government, Mr Myers said \u201cconflicting\u201d information was being given, with two different post-VAT \u2018average import tariff rates\u2019 being given in two separate meetings.<\/p>\n

Government officials, he added, were also failing to provide specifics in response to questions seeking details, yet were trying to convey the message: \u2018Trust us\u2019, and \u2018Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got it all under control\u2019.<\/p>\n

And, emphasising he was \u201cnot anti-VAT\u201d, Mr Myers expressed particular concern about the tax\u2019s impact on maintenance services businesses, telling Tribune Business the sector could be \u201cwhacked\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is impossible for Bahamian businesses to assess how VAT would impact them without seeing the legislation and revised Tariff Schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[98,275],"class_list":["post-35583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-financial","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}