The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Prime Minister yesterday lamented the "inefficient" and "antiquated" demands for businesses to obtain written confirmations and certifcations from different government agencies.

While addressing the Bahamas Business Outlook conference, Dr Hubert Minnis said: "Presently, many government agencies require written certifications from applicants during the application process for various licenses and permits.

"This often includes original paper confirmations to demonstrate that applicants have paid their taxes to other government agencies, or have complied with certain requirements of other government agencies.

"Collectively, these paper confirmation and certification processes consume a significant amount of time, and are often an inefficient burden for applicants as well as the government agencies that must sort through the volumes of documents created. This process is antiquated."

Dr Minnis singled out the Business Licence application process, noting that companies are required to supply company fee payment and good standing confirmations; NIB payment confirmations; property tax payment confirmations; and sanitation certificates.

"An idea for reform is for government ministries to instruct their agencies, departments and employees to review their license and permit application processes in order to eliminate, wherever possible, the paper confirmation and certification requirements from other government agencies, and substitute same with direct agency-to-agency contact to acquire the information directly," Dr Minnis said.

"The enhancement of e-government systems could make this an efficient technology-driven process for the Government. It is easier for a government employee to obtain confirmations from another government employee by an internally agreed upon method, than for the private sector to collect numerous paper confirmations from the front desks of various government agencies."

Dr Minnis added: "Presently, the calculation of Business License fees, the timing of such and the accountant's certification requirement is collectively an extremely burdensome process that is handled inconsistently by different parties.

"The definition of 'turnover' is ambiguous, and it is therefore calculated inconsistently by different businesses, often to the Government's detriment. The nature of the accountant certification process places a burden on businesses, which now have to produce three sets of income statement figures - one for VAT reporting, one for Business License turnover, and the actual books for routine financial reporting.

"Additionally, the Business License fee structure has numerous fee levels that encourage businesses on the margin of a fee break-point to manipulate results to stay at the rate most favourable to them.

"All in all, the Business License regime layered over the VAT regime has resulted in an inefficient and cumbersome business environment," said Dr Minnis.

Dr Minnis said that while large businesses have in-house accounting departments, and the resources to engage external accounting and legal services, many small-and-medium sized businesses (SMEs) simply do not have the resources to do so.

"One idea to respond to this challenge is the establishment of an SME Tax Help desk to provide assistance to SMEs with tax matters, including the preparation and filing of VAT returns, invoice formatting etc," he added.

"Presently, the VAT Department and Public Treasury are at separate locations. Documents which must be stamped must first be taken to the Department of Inland Revenue and then to the Public Treasury.

"This process will be simplified through better electronic interfaces and other measures."

Dr Minnis added that the Toronto-based Wynn Group's 118-unit condo hotel investment at Goodman's Bay on West Bay Street is "in the pipeline".

The developer is also in the midst of acquiring the Grand Lucayan property in Grand Bahama.