A tax reform team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in Barbados meeting with the members of the Mia Mottley-led administration.
Co-chair of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) monitoring committee, Edward Clarke, said while he would not be privy to those discussions, he believes any new taxation should come from new revenue streams.
Clarke was speaking during a Press conference at the Sagicor Building in Wildey on Friday.
The BERT Monitoring Committee is an independent subcommittee of the social partnership which was established to monitor Government’s progress in reaching the targets agreed to with the IMF. It released its first report Friday.
“The IMF tax reform team is here working with Government. We are not sure what is going to be the outcome of that. But obviously Government may have to rejig how it structures it tax structures and the strategy around tax committee was “eagerly awaiting the outcome of that work by the team.”
But the co-chair noted the level of taxation was already too high and any more taxes should come from “new revenue streams, new growth. And that is where we are going from what I see,” he said.
President of the Bankers Association, Donna Wellington, who also represents the Private Sector Association, stressed the BERT Monitoring Committee would be living up to its name and keeping an eye on the outcome.
“We will be monitoring the tax revenue. We will be monitoring is happening in this regard as the quarters progress,” she said.
(HLE)
Edward Clarke (FP)
the expenses. We will be making sure and reporting to the public exactly what
