The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Immigration overtime fees are “violating” the ‘Bill of Rights’ that governs how this nation treats visiting private pilots, a well-known guide for Caribbean aviators has charged.

The comments by Jim Parker, president of Caribbean Flying Adventures.com, came as the Customs Comptroller pledged to Tribune Business that he would deal with any “misunderstandings” surrounding his department’s policy towards visiting private pilots and the levying of fees.

Responding to Tribune Business’s Friday report, which detailed the chaos and confusion surrounding the Bahamas’ tax treatment of private pilots, Charles Turner said the problem may relate to uncertainty about what qualifies as a ‘recreational flight’.

He explained that private pilots, who did not receive payment for bringing either cargo or passengers into the Bahamas, would not be hit with ‘service charges’ (overtime fees) by Customs. But pilots who received remuneration for such activities would incur these charges outside of normal work hours.

“I think there’s a misunderstanding,” Mr Turner told Tribune Business. “What may have happened, too, is some persons may not understand when a flight is being considered a pleasure flight.

“If someone lives in Lyford Cay and has their own private jet, but there is a private pilot being paid to fly the jet, we’d consider that commercial.” Such a flight would thus incur Customs service charges.

A guide that Bahamian representatives were handing out to private pilots at the recent ‘Sun & Fun’ Lakeland Air Show in Florida contained a personal pledge by Mr Turner that his agency would not be levying service charges “regardless of port of entry or time of day”.

Many private pilots, though, are saying that such promises and marketing materials are not matching the reality on the ground, where both Customs and Immigration are continuing to levy the fees introduced by the 2013-2014 Budget.

in his letter issued to private pilots, Mr Turner promised that “the significance of the private flyer is very evident to us”, with Customs combining its general declaration and inter-island movement form into one - slashing bureaucracy for ‘island hoppers’.

Then, in his key announcement, Mr Turner stated: “Additionally, individuals flying for pleasure are not required to pay Customs service charges regardless of the port of arrival/departure or time of day.”

Speaking to Tribune Business a day after this newspaper broke the story, Mr Turner said: “I am more than willing to address and deal with this matter, if they [private pilots] can give me these areas where there are complications, whether it’s Customs or Immigration.

“I will send out a report to my officers again. I know many of my officers say many of these pilots classify themselves as private pilots when they are not, because they are being paid for their services. Therefore, they may not be deemed private pilots.

“I want to assist these people as best I cn, and if I find out we’re charging these people where we shouldn’t be, I will address it.”

Mr Turner read out Regulation 10:2 as the one that provided the basis for Customs to levy ‘service charges’ against private pilots who were being paid to bring cargo or passengers into the Bahamas.

This was reiterated in the accompanying Private Pilot’s Bill of Rights 2014-2015 also handed out at Lakeland, which categorically states: “No overtime Customs and Immigration fees for private aircraft visiting the islands of the Bahamas, where the pilot declares that he/she does not receive any remuneration and the flight is for recreational purposes.”

However, this also backs Mr Parker’s assertion that the Immigration overtime fees are breaching the Bill of Rights. “What needs to be fixed is the Immigration overtime charges, which violate the Private Bill of Rights that’s been in existence for decades,” he told Tribune Business.

Mr Parker added that Mr Turner would “solve 75 per cent of the problem” if he was able to get his Lakeland letter out to all Customs airport stations, and clarify “what the rules are” to all his officers.

Speaking after returning to Florida from Harbour Island, Mr Parker said White Crown Aviation, a major fixed base operator (FBO) in North Eleuthera that is open six days a week, had not seen Mr Turner’s letter until he showed it to them.

“Someone needs to get their act together, and the Comptroller of Customs needs to distribute that to his people. That would go a long way to resolving the problem,” Mr Parker said.

“But Immigration are definitely charging overtime, and the director told me point blank he is not making any distinction between private and commercial flights. That’s a violation of the Private Pilots Bill of Rights.”

Mr Parker also suggested that Mr Turner’s concerns over private pilot flights that received compensation may be overblown, as pilots’ US licences prevented them operating a plane for commercial purposes. They faced losing their licences if caught by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Meanwhile, Ian Goodfellow, principal of Goodfellow Farms and a private pilot, told Tribune Business he had incurred $1,000 in Customs and Immigration overtime fees since January 1 this year.

Estimating that he would likely total $3,000 in payments for the full year, Mr Goodfellow said he was being “nailed” by having to commute twice weekly between his business interests in New Providence and Florida.

This typically means having to leave the Bahamas before 9am, and taking-off from Florida between 5.50-6.30pm - exposing him to the charges both ways.

“I’m a private pilot because I own my own plane, and fly a single engine,” Mr Goodfellow said. “I’m going to spend $3,000 in overtime charges this year, and that’s a lot of fuel for me.”

He suggested that what the Government was making from the new fees was being lost in a lower tax take resulting from reduced aviation fuel sales.

“They’ve made up their own rules to decide what is private and what is commercial. They shouldn’t be charging these fees, but they are. They’re tapping into private industry to collect taxes for them,” Mr Goodfellow told Tribune Business.