The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Opposition’s deputy leader yesterday said he saw no reason why the Government should not be able to collect on the $156.6 million in real property taxes said to be owed by foreigners, adding that this simply highlights the “slackness in the system”.

    Commenting on a report highlighted by Tribune Business, which revealed that  foreigners owning vacant land in the Bahamas owe the Government more than $156.623 million in unpaid real property taxes, K P Turnquest said: “I believe that the Government has some power with respect to this.

“In as much as it is foreign-owned property. they ought to the able to collect on it without too much social dislocation. I don’t see that there is any reason why they shouldn’t be able to collect on that. At the end of the day it just goes to the slackness in the system.”

The report, which had never previously been revealed to the Bahamian people, disclosed the extent to which just over 5,800 non-compliant taxpayers owe the bulk - some 75 per cent - of the $633.416 million in unpaid real property taxes that were sitting on the Ministry of Finance’s books in 2010.

The report, produced by Dr Roy Kelly, Dr Graham Glenday and Wayne Forde, was completed in mid-2011, but has never been formally released or made widely-known to the public until now.

“You might be able to come up with some form of justification  for Bahamians getting some kind of concession, but certainly you would think that any foreign-owned property wouldn’t’ qualify unless there is some extenuating circumstance that we don’t know about,” said Mr Turnquest.