The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Department of Inland Revenue was yesterday said to be “determined” to overcome the Business Licence application backlog and ensure all renewals and new requests are promptly processed.

Beaumont Todd, the tax authority’s communications and training manager, said there are more than 60,000 businesses currently operating in The Bahamas and a number of new applications submitted daily, all of which have to be processed by a small team.

“I would say, to a certain degree, probably yes, if you take consideration, there’s about 60,000-plus businesses throughout the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, and that is growing every day,” he said.

“So we are in the process of trying, to the best of our ability, to cut that down, but we are a small department. We’re still determined to make sure that these persons not just get their Business Licence renewed, but new businesses come in.”

Mr Todd said that, in addition to making system upgrades, the Department of Inland Revenue is also holding virtual and in-person training sessions to walk entrepreneurs that are experiencing difficulties through the Business Licence application and renewal process.

“In addition to working on the system, to upgrade the system, the other aspect of what we’re also doing is these different sessions and stuff that we have going on to make sure that we are there to walk persons through the process, because we know persons learn differently,” said Mr Todd.

“One of the things we’ve been doing has been the pop-ups. We’ve been doing the virtual workshop during the process of renew. We’ve actually invited persons into the Department of Inland Revenue, where we were having training sessions of about 10 to 15, persons at a time.

“Our training department is walking them step by step through the process to help persons demystify how they go through the process and, usually, once persons see the process, they’re usually fine and have a little progress”

Mr Todd said the Department of Inland Revenue has already begun training sessions ahead of the April 1 VAT reduction on uncooked and unprepared food items. He highlighted that many businesses have successfully executed a rate adjustment during the VAT-free holidays. VAT on unprepared food items will be reduced to 5 percent, while the rate for cooked food and other items will remain at 10 percent.

“A lot of the businesses have already, from practice, been doing a split because when we have the VAT holiday, that’s kind of what they’re actually doing, in a sense, whereas some of the items are actually still charged at the 10 percent and some of the items are actually charged at the zero rate,” he added.

“The only difference is it doesn’t reflect on the receipt because you wouldn’t see it [as] it’s a related-based item. In this instance, is just an adjustment to their system. Now, I can’t say for all of the businesses, because it depends on the type of point of sale (POS) that they actually have, but I don’t think this is something that they haven’t done in practice.

“We have had varied rates on different items for a lot of these different businesses, so it’s just making the adjustment to make sure that the items that are actually listed would have the correct rate for them at the end of the day.”

Mr Todd said that once the VAT rate reduction has come into effect, all businesses must comply to ensure clients benefit from the savings. If customers encounter an issue, a report can be lodged with the Department of Inland Revenue via social media or telephone.

“We have certain items that have been dedicated for the 5 percent. Now, the reality of it is, every business, based on the law, is required, once it’s those particular items, to charge for the 5 percent so that the clients and the customers can get the benefit,” said Mr Todd.

“And if they don’t, we still have the law to follow up and support what we are actually doing with our compliance unit. This is why persons, if they have an issue, they can always come to us and report to us, whether they call us on our phones or through our social media, and as swiftly as we can, we try to respond and the follow up on their claims.”