The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Government’s major tax authority is undertaking a Family Island compliance tour to better educate residents and businesses on the need to pay their due tax obligations and how to do so, it was confirmed yesterday.

John Williams, the Department of Inland Revenue’s (DIR) communications chief, told Tribune Business that officials are currently in Bimini, the third island they have visited after Long Island and Abaco as part of this initiative. He maintained that it is geared towards educating residents on the requirements they must meet for Business Licences, VAT and real property tax rather than an enforcement crackdown that will result in sanctions, goods seizures and company closures.

He said: “We’re visiting these islands to educate persons on what they need to be doing for Business Licence, real property tax, VAT and everything else that we do at the Department. It’s not a visitation to shut anybody down, or anything of the likes. We just want persons to know what they need to do to become compliant.”

Mr Williams added that the meetings the Department of Inland Revenue is holding with Family Island communities to address their queries, gather feedback and resolve outstanding tax matters is generating a positive response.

He said: “We’ve held Town Hall meetings, either one or multiple meetings, depending on the island and the reach, to hear from persons in the community; what issues they’re having with the Department, to help them finish cases that may be outstanding, or just to answer general questions about our Department. Any policies, any changes and stuff like that. Everything has been going very well. We’ve had good responses on each island.”

He explained that many Abaco business owners who were impacted by Hurricane Dorian have made the transition from a physical storefront to a home-based business due to the damage their premises suffered. These persons were advised by Department of Inland Revenue representatives on how to convert or retain their business address while they manoeuvre through the Business Licence renewal process.

“One of the popular things would have been Business Licence location since the hurricane,” Mr Williams said. “They would have had storefront addresses on their Business Licence, and since the hurricane destroyed a lot of things they would have had to become home-based businesses, but their licences were registering them as storefronts.

“So that was a common thing they needed to know: How would they renew? What they need to change it to home base? Would they be able to keep the storefront location?”

Mr Williams added that Family Island residents also complained that the process to obtain real property tax assessment numbers from the Department of Inland Revenue was “taking a bit longer” than expected.

He said: “And then also obtaining for real property tax, the assessment numbers, having properties declared in our system, so persons can get the assessment numbers and the process taking a bit long for the Family Islands to have them declared and inputted in our system.”

The Department of Inland Revenue will be in Bimini until September 29 at the George W. Weech complex, and is hosting a Town Hall meeting today at the Louise McDonald High School.