Central Bank GOVERNOR Dr Delisle Worrell has recommended that Government scrap the Value Added Tax as a source of revenue since it is complicated, has hurt the tourism industry and is basically “a mess”.
He is quoted as telling a Bahamian newspaper during a visit by regional journalists for last week’s Caribbean Economic Forum, that his stance on VAT, implemented here since 1997, was “very radical” because he believed it to be an inappropriate tax for a tourism-related economy.
“VAT is an anti-tourism tax if you are a tourism producer because it makes your tourism more expensive than the people who don’t charge VAT . . . .
A simple sales tax would do. If you had a simple sales tax then that would be a more efficient way to raise the same level of revenue,” he told the newspaper whose country is about to introduce a ten per cent VAT on goods and services.
Describing VAT as very complicated, problematic, regressive and “horribly complicated”, the Governor told the Nassau Guardian that it placed a tremendous burden on Government administration.
“Our VAT system right now is a mess because of outstanding refunds,” he stated.
