GOVERNMENT SEEMS to have a “curse-God-and-die” attitude as suggested in the Book of Job, and should take a leaf from Bermuda’s book and build out its international business sector, says Opposition Senator Kerrie Symmonds.
He said even the last Budget had smacked of that attitude of surrender as Government blamed the global recession for most things; but he cautioned that Government must “step up” in the sector which accounts for 60 per cent of the corporate tax take.
Speaking during debate on the Exempt Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012 in the Senate yesterday, Symmonds warned that by 2015 developing states like Barbados would have to remove certain fiscal incentives from their statute books based on World Trade Organization rules.
He also cautioned that Barbados, the third largest place for Canadian investment outside of Canada itself, was no longer unique in its tax arrrangements with that country since Canada had modified its arrangements in 2009 and provided similar dividends benefits to the British Virgin Islands.
Symmonds said Bermuda was attracting international business from Indonesia, Bahrain and millions of dollars in other Islamic finance because it had capitalized on the “Islam-ophobia” existing in the United States.
In 2010, he added, Bermuda noted natural disasters worldwide and had established a catastrophe bonds system which last August benefited from California floating millions of dollars into it.
He said Barbados’ failure to be proactive was a cause for serious concern, and unless this country treated the international business sector with the care it deserved, it would be unable to manage the necessary economic transition following the loss of preferential markets, subsidies and fiscal incentives.
On trial
Saying there was a need “to walk and talk the country through these issues”, Symmonds felt Government was on trial for its approach to these challenges, and further pointed out that its medium term fiscal strategy didn’t show the country what it must come to terms with in 2015.
He also argued that Barbados’ 2007-2012 strategic plan for the international business sector must be revamped since that plan had now “descended into obsolescence” and he called for a high net worth individual regime with the required transparent legal framework.
“While we have fiddled since 2008, the Bahamas, Switzerland and Ireland have put such regimes in place,” he said, adding “there’s no policy that will succeed if it exists only in the minds of a few and in the hearts of none”.
Symmonds said while Barbados’ embassies in China and Brazil must be lauded, competitors in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands had approved jurisdictional status to sit on the stock exchange in Hong Kong.
“Are we making the most out of our embassy in China? Is it not time to be staffing that embassy with persons at the cutting edge of marketing strategies?” he asked, adding that Barbados should also revisit its Companies Act to allow for the incorporation of Asian companies.
“Now is the time, but we do nothing . . . to sieze the day – carpe diem – and are therefore in danger of squandering the opportunity . . . . It would be a crying shame if the Caymans and Bermuda were left unchallenged.”
The bill, introduced by Minister of Commerce and Trade Haynesley Benn, would ensure that the income tax payable under the act by licensees operating for more than 15 years becomes comparable with the increased licence fee of those operating for less than that time. (RJ)
