The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

In a well-written letter in Tuesday’s Tribune, a Mr. Jerome Smith questions why the Ministry of Finance cannot seem to collect property taxes.

While I agree with some of the ideas outlined in his letter, Mr. Smith seems (like successive governments) to be ignoring the over-fed 800 pound gorilla in the middle of the room and concentrating instead on the cowering little mouse in the corner.

The majority of delinquent property taxes in The Bahamas are owed by foreign owners of real estate in the Family Islands – where Bahamians (rightly) are exempted from property taxes.

The logical, rational and sane model of property taxes in a relatively vast country of 400,000 people with one of the world’s most high-end foreign-owned property markets would be the extension of this exemption for Bahamians to the entire Bahamas, including New Providence, and the introduction of a real regime of enforcement.

This would both balance the negative effects of Bahamians being priced out of their own real estate and cause a massive boost to the treasury, especially if government enforced compliance with the only method used in the home countries of most of our delinquent “guests” – selling to new buyers and depositing the proceeds in the Treasury.

As a land lawyer, I am aware of hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid property taxes owned by foreigners in the Exumas alone, and probably hundreds more in the Abacos. One single owner owes more than Ten Million Dollars on a group of cays, for which the Treasury has not received a payment since the date of purchase decades ago.

Clients of mine regularly express shock at the almost laughably low level of property taxes they pay here compared to the high price of land and exorbitant fees to lawyers and realtors. It says something sad and embarrassing about our country’s political values and the cliques that are allowed to set them.

Foreigners must at present apply to our government for the privilege of owning Bahamian Real Estate – where they abuse this privilege by not complying with tax laws, this could and should be readily addressed by the power of sale. It isn’t - and by choice.

In addition to the forfeited tax receipts, the lax policy on foreign owners makes no sense to the industry or the general economy, either. A policy of selling tax delinquent properties would invigorate a market where high-end properties are presently often alienated from potential sales by hefty tax accumulation that the next buyer must absorb.

So the answer to why Bahamian governments do not collect property taxes like their counterparts in Palm Beach County or Beverly Hills is simple: because they don’t want to.

Unlike the latter, their world-view is informed by a foreign-supremacist ideology that seldom succumbs to the influence of logic or common sense – or even desperate need.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau

February 15, 2023