The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A FORMER Bahamas Chamber of Commerce president said yesterday it was “not at all surprising” that some 35,000 properties that should be subject to real property tx (RPT) assessments were not in the Government’s database, again calling for this tax’s collection to be outsourced to the private sector.

Minister of State for Finance, Michael Halkitis, recently revealed at a ‘Meet the Minister’ session hosted by the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce & Employers Confederation (BCCEC) that one-third of properties that should be subjected to real property tax assessments are not in the Government’s database, and that it is only collecting half the real property tax revenues due to it annually.

In response, Dionisio D’Aguilar, Superwash’s president, said: “That’s not surprising. That’s the problem. The thing is a solution needs to be found already. The Government just needs to come up with some solutions and implement them. We know what the problems are; they just need to be solved

“Unless you outsource this whole collection of property taxes, it will continue to be run in the inept and efficient way it’s being done now.

“If you take the United States, for example, if you don’t pay it by the deadline they charge you interest, and within 12 months they will have your house on the market for sale in order to cover the property taxes. Everyone knows what happens, and so people pay.”

Mr D’Aguilar added: “The Government should also give you different ways to pay. If a private company was doing it they would put people up on a payment plan.

“You have to make it easy for people to pay. If you have an $8,000 property tax bill, having to pay that all at once may be quite difficult, but if you take that and divide it by 12, that may be an easier amount to come up with every month.”

On the real property tax front, Mr Halkitis said an estimated 35,000 properties that should have been assessed during the 2011 tax year were not covered or registered in the Government’s database.

He added that of the 88,000 properties in the database, some 22,000 were benefiting from the exemption, while close to 50 per cent of those liable to pay real property tax were not receiving their bills.

Mr Halkitis, meanwhile, added that the Government was proceeding with plans to establish a Central Revenue Agency (CRA) that will collect all taxes bar Customs duties, and that together the two departments would receive 90 per cent of all due revenues.