$100M more

Government saw a “substantial spike” in revenues in excess of $100 million in VAT receipts last year following the 2.5 per cent rate hike in the 2011 Budget.
Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler told the House of Assembly yesterday that in the last ten to 15 years, there had been a shift from direct to indirect taxes, or transactional taxes, such as VAT, along with a reduction in personal income tax and land taxes.
“The performance of the economy has been largely determinant of how much taxes Government received from consumption and they would contract,” he said.
“And that has been the experience over the last few years even though in 2011-2012, there was a substantial spike in VAT following the increase from 15 per cent to 17.5 per cent, but as the economy contracted, those revenues have tended to go down.”