The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Customs was yesterday urged to “red flag” businesses that paid for commercial-size imports via cash or personal cheque, with the Chamber’s chairman warning: “We’ve got to squash the informal economy.”

Robert Myers told Tribune Business that Bahamian businesses needed to embrace the electronic, cashless world, adding: “This is not the 1800s; it’s the 21st century.”

Warning that Value-Added Tax’s (VAT) impending introduction meant it would become increasingly important for the private sector to embrace the electronic, cashless world, the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) chairman called on Customs to extend its online document filing system into the payments arena.

“It needs to improve,” Mr Myers said of Customs’ Electronic Single Window (ESW), which is designed to eliminate manual paperwork in favour of the online submission of all import-related documents. “We need to pay online. We still have to go down there [to pay].”

He added that the BCCEC had also encouraged Customs, and the Government, to use the technology drive to help eliminate fraud and Duty/Excise Tax evasion at the Bahamas’s borders, thereby meeting the private sector’s demands for greater enforcement of the existing tax system.

“In our position paper, with regard to Customs we said anyone who pays in cash should be red-flagged. Everybody should be credit card only,” Mr Myers told Tribune Business.

“As we move into a VAT arena, businesses have to act like businesses. And Customs cannot be taking someone’s personal cheque to clear it.”

He argued that Customs should look especially closely at commercial-sized (20 and 40-foot containers) imports where either cash or personal cheques were used to clear them. Business Licences should be requested to validate the transaction, which would also enable Customs to check whether the imports matched a company’s normal business lines.

“We’d like to see it move quickly to that system,” Mr Myers told Tribune Business. “If someone does pay with a personal cheque, why? If someone pays in cash, why? If goods come in and you pay with a personal cheque, present your Business Licence.

“This is a commercial transaction. We’ve got to squash the informal economy. We’d like to see them doing more, but it’s encouraging.”

The BCCEC chairman said it was vital to crack down on border tax evasion because those committing it were likely to be engaged in similar activities elsewhere in the economy.

“When you have someone breaking the law there, it’s likely they’re breaking the law elsewhere,” Mr Myers told Tribune Business.

He called on Customs and the Government to expand the electronic filing system into online payments, where companies, importers and brokers were able to pay via means such as wire transfers.

Mr Myers also suggested that a facility be set up where companies could pay import taxes via a direct debit from their bank account into that of the Public Treasury’s, in much the same was as Bahamians pay their BEC, Cable Bahamas and other utility bills.

“We’re getting there, but in baby steps,” he told this newspaper.

Mr Myers said that while he had heard “rumblings” in the private sector about issues with Customs’ electronic filing system, and its frequently going off-line, his businesses had suffered no impact.

“We tested it the other day and it was fine,” he added of Customs’ ESW system. “We have an in-house brokerage, and my crew said it was working great. I specifically asked my people to tell me if anything was wrong, and they said: ‘No’. I haven’t heard any complaints.”