The Tribune

MINISTER of Finance Peter Turnquest said the government will have to make some “unpopular” decisions and “break a few eggs” to achieve its target of a balanced budget by 2020.

However he said yesterday he did not think there is a need to increase taxes currently, saying the Minnis administration intended to keep its campaign promises of lowering certain taxes – some of which will be fulfilled in the new fiscal year.

His comments came while he was a guest on the 96.9 FM talk show, “Q & A” with host Quincy Parker.

When asked if he thought an increase in taxes was necessary, the deputy prime minister said the Bahamas had lower taxes on average than other countries in the region, but he was not convinced there was a need to raise the tax threshold.

“I think we have some room in comparison of our neighbours, however I am not convinced yet,” Mr Turnquest said. “This is a debate that goes on in the Ministry of Finance as we analyse policy and where we go from here, I am not convinced yet that we need to do that. I believe we need to look more effectively and objectively at our existing revenue streams to ensure we are collecting what we are supposed to be collecting.”

He added: “I am not there yet in terms of a need to increase the taxes – it is something we are looking at, we in the Ministry of Finance – and I encourage the economists to examine all alternatives. As I said earlier, if you are not innovating, changing, adapting to the times you are going to fall behind.

“We have a target, we want to have a balanced budget I think in 2020, is our target, and in order to do that we have to break a few eggs, do some things differently. It’s uncomfortable, it’s unpopular, I’m sure by the end of it I’ll probably be unpopular, but I take the view that no matter what, when I leave here hopefully I would have made a difference in a positive way so I could have made it easier for the next guy.

“Yes, taxes is an unpopular topic, not something people want to hear, it’s not my view, at least currently, that we need to increase our taxes, in fact I think we need to lower our taxes in certain areas, and we are looking at some things. We made some promises on the campaign trail and we intend to live up to them, looking at that now and certainly we will make some announcements in the upcoming budget to fulfill some of those promises, the ones that we can anyway at this particular time. Hopefully at the end of the day, the public will agree that we are moving in the right direction in terms of the types of policies that we are putting in place that are based upon sound economic principle, rather than emotion and politics.”