EDITOR, The Tribune
Please let me know if the following analogy is incorrect.
Mr A, a Bahamian citizen, owns and lives in a three-bedroom detached house in a nice subdivision in Nassau for which he pays real property tax. Mr B, also a Bahamian citizen, lives in Abaco and has constructed and lives in a large five-bedroom detached house for which he pays no real property taxes.
Mr A therefore is subsidising Mr B and his property for minor road repairs, garbage collection, street lighting, etc. I understand the original idea of this was to encourage people to leave New Providence and live in the Family Islands. However, from the analogy above, this seems to have lost its reason and all properties in The Bahamas should be charged. I fully acknowledge that there should be dispensation for the poorer southern islands.
Apart from that, local taxes should be paid to the local authority and used for the purposes indicated.
Please do not tell me that, to institute taxes for the Family Islands would cause the government to lose seats. If any incoming new government were to abolish the same, it would probably lose all the seats in New Providence anyway.
The same goes for New Providence. Why on earth should the government Ministry of Works responsible for all major works have to fix every single pothole. This should be done by the local authority which would collect its own taxes to pay for the same.
INTERESTED SPECTATOR
Nassau
February 14, 2019
Comments
ohdrap4 5 years ago
your problem will be solved when the WTO comes.
joeblow 5 years ago
Good points, but the purpose of Bahamian politics in not to increase efficiency and reduce government waste, taxes and corruption! Criminality thrives and fortunes are made in the backwardness!
TheMadHatter 5 years ago
Good idea - but the problem is that the local authorities would have to be accountable to the local citizens and show how much taxes were collected and where from and also show where any monies were spent and how much. This is called accountability.
The local authorities would do an excellent job of keeping track and showing their figures. This would make central government look bad because they dont do this and it would also cause the average beer drinking pot smoking citizen to question why not.
This would then cause the 5 year beer and chicken rallies to cease working and politicians would lose their 20+ year old seats.
Politicians know this and so they will not enact true local government.
sheeprunner12 5 years ago
Out Islanders are as or more accountable to the Government than the city folks ....... smh
We are just treated as colonists by the Nassau Government ......... fix that.
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