The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

A CABINET minister has pledged that the woes with the Government’s online tax reporting portal “should be behind us in the next week” with “some stark improvements” already occurring.

Michael Halkitis, minister of economic affairs, used the Prime Minister’s Office’s media briefing to apologise to the Bahamian private sector for the frustration and stress caused by an inability to access to the Department of Inland Revenue’s portal and subsequent challenges in meeting both VAT and Business Licence filing deadlines and payments.

“There has been a lot of talk and a lot of coverage about the difficulties at the Inland Revenue Department, particularly the Business Licence renewals, and I want to begin by apologising to all those affected for the difficulties they have had,” he said.

“We have accelerated our attention to that area recently, and I am advised we are already beginning to see some stark improvements to what is going on and, in the next week or so, we should have put those issues behind us. Just to thank the public for their patience and, once again, to apologise for any inconvenience.”

Mr Halkitis, meanwhile, said mid-year Budget revenue projections are “on track” and the Government still expects to meet its full-year fiscal targets despite the doubts voiced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and others.

“We are in full preparation mode for our mid-year Budget, which will be presented to Parliament on February 21, which is a week after next,” he added. “So preparations are in full stride for that, meetings with the various ministries and agencies, to assess their progress so far for the first half of the year and plans for the second half of the year, and make the necessary adjustments that we see given changes in priorities and development for the first half of the year.

“Generally, we are positive. We are generally on track. I know there was some commentary about a so-called bad first quarter. I would just like to say, as all of you we’ll be watching the game tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, the Super Bowl, there are four quarters to the game.

“There are four quarters to the financial year, and we fully expect to be within the range of meeting our targets when we look to the full-year because the second half of the year is generally the time when the Government revenues per- form the best.”

Mr Halkitis explained that government usually has large debt payments at the beginning of the year, but will collect significant revenues from Business Licence fees, real property tax and commercial vehicle fees during the second half.

He said: “The government financial year starts July 1, and runs to June 30. Traditionally, what has happened is that your expenses remain basically even except sometimes you have larger debt payments in the beginning of the year.

“But your revenue, the Government’s sort of biggest revenue months, are anywhere from January, February, March, because that is when you collect things like Business Licence, real property tax and bills that go out at the end of the year... Commercial motor vehicles are in March.

“So the Government’s revenue is not spread evenly over the year. There are periods where the revenue is higher, and that’s the second half of the year. We might be behind in the first quarter, but we make up before the end of the year, and so we expect that things will pick up during the second half and we’ll be able to meet and hopefully exceed our targets.”