ALTHOUGH BARBADIANS may have wanted Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler to offer more tax relief in yesterday’s national Budget, Government has to focus on carefully balancing its revenue and expenditure.
This was the assessment of president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB), David Simpson, who said there was a limit to what Government could do in the present circumstances without hampering its efforts to stimulate the economy and address the fiscal deficit.
“Barbadians have become accustomed to a certain standard of living that they would like to see maintained but at the same time Government has to monitor its expenditure versus the revenues it is taking in and make sure that we are not creating an environment that our children, their children and their grandchildren will have to be paying for for the rest of their lives,” he said last night during Starcom Network’s post-Budget discussion.
“Government has its Medium Term Fiscal Strategy it proposed a few years back and they are making all efforts to stick to it.
“The level of taxation relief given indicates that, I’m sure, Government could’ve gone a bit further and the public would’ve liked to see more tax relief, but there’s only so much the Government can do in the current circumstances . . .,” Simpson said. (NB)
