Government is being called on to revise the way it taxes party promoters.
Event producer Mario Turton made the suggestion as he expressed concern about some of the challenges affecting the sector.
“There’s an urgent need for policy reform particularly around how events are taxed. These changes would empower promoters to reinvest and produce even more attractive experiences that can drive tourism and benefit the economy. Now is the time to act, and I’m calling on the Government to take a serious look at this before we lose momentum,” said Turton, one of the producers of events such as We Ting and UV.
Recently, several promoters lamented that small fêtes were being overly scrutinised by Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) officers who have resumed attending events to conduct audits.
However, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Ryan Straughn, said the resumption of these visits was their way to ensure there was compliance.
Compliance
“We’ve been out of COVID for two years, so all of those things should have been resumed. However, it came to my attention around Easter and I indicated that they needed to ensure that they were on top of it.
“While [one promoter] may put on an event and come in and organise yourself, [another] might decide that they will not come in and regularise.
“However, patrons paid the taxes as advertised but those taxes [value added tax] would not have been remitted to the Revenue Authority, so this is
really for us to make sure that the compliance is there,” Straughn said.
Turton noted that promoters often under-charge patrons to attend events.
“I remain optimistic but the truth is, in the current economic climate, it is not feasible to charge what should be the actual price to attend events. Additionally, the size of our market limits what we can realistically charge to cover taxes and overheads for events. I get that the minister and the BRA folks are doing their job, but without targeted policy shifts, the entertainment sector will continue to face major disadvantages in this economy,” he added.
Multiple officers
Another promoter who previously spoke to the NATION and requested anonymity, questioned why multiple BRA officers were auditing, considering the huge payouts promoters had to make.
“What is the statement BRA is trying to make? You’re sending four and five [BRA] officers out at night and I guarantee the salaries and the overtime that has to be paid is a lot more than the event producers are making. You have weekly $20 events, they don’t get 1 000 people . . . but the promoters still have to pay staff, security, venue and the stage out of the $20 they are charging. The event producers are now feeling it,” he said. (TG)
