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Bahamas Taxation System Is Unfair To Poor People
Related to country: Bahamas

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Taxation System Unfair To Poor, Accountant Says:
By Candia Dames -
Nassau, Bahamas:


The taxation system in The Bahamas is unfair to poor people, according to a prominent accountant, who was a guest on the flagship JCN programme "Jones and Company".

"The poor bear a greater percentage of the tax liability in this country, and it is a system that was put in place by you know who many, many years ago," Raymond Winder said while on the programme, which aired on Sunday.

"If you were rich or if you were a foreigner the percentage of taxes that you ended up paying on your dollar was much smaller relative to the poor, average Bahamian. Nothing has changed. If only to give a break to the average, poor Bahamian we need to change the tax system."

Mr. Winder, a managing partner at Deloitte and Touche, said those who make more should pay more.

"We have an increase in the expenses the government is incurring relative to running the government," he said.

"I believe that the current tax system is not one that matches up to that level of growth. It doesn’t take into consideration the main driver in our economy being services. There are no taxes on [anything] relative to services. There are only taxes relative to goods and goods happen to be a very small part of our economy. For years, we have been taxing everything relative to goods and consumption."

Both the first Ingraham government and the Christie administration had much to say about reforming the tax system in The Bahamas.

In fact, the Christie government had commissioned a study on tax reform, but no such reforms were implemented before the change in government last May.

Former Minister of State for Finance James Smith had spoken repeatedly about the need for tax reform, indicating that the government had been leaning toward a system of Value Added Tax, and had rejected income tax.

While on the programme, the show’s host, Wendall Jones, asked Mr. Winder whether the middle class in The Bahamas is shrinking.

"The reason why the middle class is shrinking is the cost of living is higher," Mr. Winder said. "Too many Bahamians who we regard as middle class are in a situation where they probably don’t even have six months of savings available to them in the event the husband or wife was to become unemployed for a short period."

Mr. Winder noted that while savings are increasing, many of the people who ought to be saving are not saving because of the high cost of living.

Recently, the Bahama Journal reported that Bahamians are paying more for everyday goods and services as the cost of living continues to climb amid weakening economic growth.

7 January 2007

January 7, 2008 | 10:22 PM Comments  0 comments

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