The Tribune

By MORGAN ADDERLEY

MINISTER of Finance K Peter Turnquest said the Minnis administration is pleased with the level of compliance in value added tax returns since the May general election, saying the figure is ahead of the amount collected this same time last year.

However Mr Turnquest, the deputy prime minister, would not reveal how much has been collected by the Minnis administration since taking office.

Speaking at the one-day conference of the Bahamas Association of Land Surveyors, Mr Turnquest told reporters: “Persons are required to file their VAT returns either monthly or quarterly and we have been pleased with the level of compliance so far.

“There are some very complex issues that have lingered on from the beginning of the year and even before that we’re working on, trying to cut them down. Unfortunately the buck has been passed in a lot of these cases which has caused frustration amongst the tax payers.

“But we have made a commitment to ourselves that we are going to tackle them. And whether they are popular or unpopular, we are going to come to a resolution. Those that we cannot find a common ground on, we will refer to the VAT Tribunal for them to decide based on the law, and we will come to a conclusion.”

When asked to estimate how much VAT revenue has been generated so far, Mr Turnquest declined to give a specific total: “I don’t want to say the number because I will probably be wrong, but we are ahead of where we were same time last year, so we are pleased by that.”

VAT was implemented on January 1, 2015, at a rate of 7.5 percent on most goods and services. Former Prime Minister Perry Christie explained earlier this year that $1.14 billion in VAT revenue was accumulated during 2015 and 2016, insisting that not one dollar of the money has been “frittered away” or spent “surreptitiously.”