Telecoms 'ripe' for increased taxation says former Chamber of Commerce president Dionisio D'Aguilar

Telecoms 'ripe' for more taxes
By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor:


Telecommunications is an industry "ripe" for increased taxation, a former Chamber of Commerce president yesterday urging the Government to "come up with innovative ways" to raise revenue by increasing fees on industries that paid "negligible taxes", such as banks/trust companies and the numbers business.

Suggesting that the Government impose a 1-2 per cent tax on making/receiving telephone calls, which is effectively a Bahamian national pasttime, Dionisio D'Aguilar said that if the Ingraham administration sought to raise revenues in its 2010-2011 Budget, it needed to look at fee increases that had the "least effect on the average person in the street".

Urging the Government to "come up with innovative ways to raise additional revenues", Mr D'Aguilar, who is also Superwash's president, told Tribune Business: "There are sectors of our economy that pay negligible taxes. Telecoms, that's a ripe one. Everyone pays a tax on their incoming calls. That's a totally undertaxed sector."

Mr D'Aguilar said such telecoms taxes were already levied in many other countries, and said a 1-2 per cent tax on telephone calls was "negligible to the consumer", especially since many Bahamians treated their cellular phones as a luxury.

Adding that he disagreed with fellow businessman Franklyn Wilson, who yesterday told Tribune Business that legalising gaming would result in net outflows from the Public Treasury, as a result of "gambling breeding poverty" and other adverse social consequences, Mr D'Aguilar said taxing the numbers business would raise millions of dollars per year in government revenue.

"Banks tend to be under-taxed compared to other businesses," he added. "It's a heavily under-taxed industry" compared to the income that Bahamian banks and trust companies generated per annum.

Mr D'Aguilar also pointed out that the Government was "not taxing services one bit", even though this was the sector accounting for the largest amount of economic activity in the Bahamas. He suggested, though, that the Ingraham administration was unlikely to do anything about this in the 2010-2011 Budget, and was likely to save it for a more comprehensive introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT).

"All you're looking at are fees, raising revenues from avenues that have the least effect on the average person in the street," Mr D'Aguilar said of the Government's efforts to plug the fiscal deficit and reduce the national debt.

"Look at the whole fee structure. There's a whole host of fees that are charged, but have not been amended, for four million years.

"They have to look at taxes that are easy to collect. Gasoline taxes are easy to collect because they are paid at the border when the fuel comes in. But property taxes are a nightmare to collect. Increasing property taxes could increase revenue, but not the Government's cash flow. And that's what we need to increase.

"The Government will not be able to get increased taxes from its traditional sources. Import duties are already high enough."

While all Bahamian governments were reluctant to cut spending and reduce the size of government, the former Chamber president suggested that the Ingraham administration now had to seize the moment offered by a public mood that was more prepared for austerity measures, and set the public finances back on track.

Arguing that the Government would find it impossible to accommodate the wishes of the likes of the Nassau Institute, which would like to see departments closed down and employees released, Mr D'Aguilar suggested that the administration "tackle" the generous pensions and benefits civil servants/public sector employees enjoyed.

Emphasising that this did not involve changes to basic salaries, the former Chamber president said: "They've got to get their house back in order. We don't want to go the way of the Greeks.

"The Government needs to look at the generous benefits it gives its employees. Salaries are one thing, but those generous and lucrative defined benefit pension plans for public sector workers and civil servants have to be tackled. That whole issue has to be tackled, as it will come home to roost one day."

May 07, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

Bahamians express mixed views about legalized gambling

By Jimenita Swain ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ jimenita@nasguard.com:


A Nassau Guardian team walked the streets yesterday and asked a number of Bahamians whether gambling should be legalized.

The question comes on the heels of comments yesterday by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham that he has already consulted several groups on the matter, including the Free National Movement's Central Council and members of his parliamentary team. He further noted that he informed Opposition Leader Perry Christie and Bain and Grants Town Member of Parliament Dr. Bernard Nottage that the government is considering the matter.

Many Bahamians expressed mixed views yesterday to The Nassau Guardian on the issue.

"The Bible speaks against gambling and I don't think we should do it," said street vendor Lynn Barr.

The 47-year-old said, "We call our nation a Christian nation, so we [have] to live up to that standard. [We've] got to trust God for all things."

"I applied on behalf of the Olympic Association for the legalization of a lottery for the purpose of helping sports and other social things," said Sir Arlington Butler, immediate past president of the Bahamas Olympic Association.

That application he explained was many years ago.

" There was some concern about the Christian Council, but I canvassed the Christian Council and I didn't find the concern the government was expressing. And they have for years been putting the Christian Council as the bogey man, but I think it was because of a lack of imagination, a lack of concern. I know that some of the churches really believe that there ought not to be gambling. I know the Methodists have been on record as saying so and there are some others."

He added that the former Archbishop of the West Indies and Bishop of The Bahamas Drexel Gomez was also against gambling.

"When you measure all of the arguments against it and those for it, I believe there is a definite possibility that it should be allowed for the benefit of the Bahamian people," he said.

Sir Arlington said in 1972 the Olympic Association raffled a house for $5 a ticket and the association has never been in the red since.

He said the legislation of gambling is long overdue.

"The unfortunate point is that we encourage it to be illegal. We encourage corruption. We encourage the development of an individual or individuals and not the development of the society. I don't know if any major things went wrong in Florida, because they had [a] lottery."

Symphony Sands, a beauty consultant said, "Honestly whether gambling is legal or illegal it doesn't matter because everyone is doing it anyway. You see police officers talking about numbers, what fall today, what [didn't] fall today, so they might as well make it legal so no one goes to jail for it [because] they're doing it anyway."

Chief of Security for Solomon Mines Carson Hepburn said, "I think gambling should be legalized. If you really look at it right now, as it is today, gambling in this country, the police knows every gambling house in this country. They know everybody is gambling, but they know it is not legal also, but [there's] nothing they can do about it. I don't see why it shouldn't be legal."

Straw market vendor Margaret Curry said, "I think gambling should not be legalized. It's a bad habit and once you fall into that habit it's an endless tunnel where you get into (it) and you never return. You get poor, broke, desperate and your children eat nothing. Gambling is a disease. Gambling is a demonic curse."

Curry compared gambling to a person who has an alcohol addition.

Fifty-one-year-old Larry Austin, another vendor in the straw market, said he also did not think gambling should be legalized.

"I don't think its a good thing. If you look at the Bible... they [gambled] for Jesus' robe and I don't think that was nice. Gambling keeps you in poverty, anybody who gambles ends up in poverty because you lose," said Austin.

He added, "You can never win once you gamble. Gambling is not a good thing because it is addictive."

Jewelry store clerk Nadia Bethel said, "I believe gambling should be legalized if the country is going to allow casinos to be here on the island. If we say we're a Christian nation and we don't want our Bahamians gambling then therefore we should not let any human beings gamble."

She added, "Visitors gamble because we have casinos legalized here in The Bahamas."

April 14, 2010

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International

Another former senior FNM favours legalised gambling

By ALISON LOWE
Tribune Staff Reporter
alowe@tribunemedia.net:


ANOTHER former senior FNM has come out in favour of the legalisation of gambling, amid speculation that the Government may be preparing to liberalise gaming laws in the Bahamas in the coming legislative session.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Frank Watson, who was recently honoured by the government when the new road bordering the Albany resort was named after him, said police are "wasting their time and resources running after" those who conduct and participate in lotteries in the Bahamas and it is "time for us to face the music."

"We waste the police's precious time trying to lock up and seemingly never to get a conviction so why not legalise it? We need to get it behind us. If I don't want to gamble I don't have to gamble no one is forcing you (if it is legalised)."

"The reality is there is a block of churches that oppose gaming being legalised, but the police can do nothing about it as it goes on illegally.

"Police continue to waste time running behind numbers people and all they're doing is taking the focus off crime in my view," said the former parliamentarian and current chairman of the Nassau Airport Development Company.

His comments come as speculation remains high that the Government, which has been urged by numerous stakeholders to reform gaming laws in the Bahamas, may announce in the Speech from the Throne, which will outline the Government's next legislative agenda upon the opening of the new session of Parliament on April 14, that it intends to liberalise gambling laws in The Bahamas.

Such speculation has been bolstered by reports that the question of whether gambling laws should be reformed was recently put to the FNM Council for a vote by party leader and Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.

Speaking with The Tribune, Mr Watson said he was not sure if this did indeed happen but "understands that this may have been so."

Meanwhile, when asked yesterday if the council did vote on the issue of liberalisation, FNM party chairman Carl Bethel admitted that gambling law reform is indeed "a question that's being discussed internally in the Free National Movement."

However, Bahamas Hotel Association President Robert Sands, who was part of the group that presented a proposal to the Government last year calling for a reform of the Bahamas' gaming laws -- in his group's case, the proposal specifically related to who can gamble in casinos in The Bahamas and what kinds of games are permitted in those tourist establishments, rather than the legalisation of numbers houses -- told Tribune Business last week that he had not heard anything officially on the matter. FML CEO Craig Flowers said the same.

Mr Watson told The Tribune he feels that other than those churches who oppose gambling on religious grounds, most Bahamians are either "ambivalent about or participate in" illegal gambling.

He added that if it were legalised, expanded gambling could be a major revenue-raising measure for the Government.

"The money raised could be used to implement programmes dealing with anti-social behaviour or to put on after school classes or day care. Parents are having difficulty managing their jobs and their children," he suggested.

Nonetheless, the ex-parliamentarian admitted the move would be one that a government would have to "think through carefully and be prepared to take the consequences" of.

Former FNM Cabinet Minister Theresa Moxey came under fire several weeks ago after she described police raids on numbers houses as equivalent to officers "terrorising peaceful citizens." She suggested the law that allows non-Bahamians and non-Bahamian residents to gamble while denying those categories of people the same right is "discriminatory."

A Group of Evangelical Pastors -- Cedric Moss, Allan Lee, Lyall Bethel and Alfred Stuart -- called Mrs Moxey-Ingraham's comments "irresponsible" and urged the Government to strengthen anti-gambling laws and their enforcement to "rid our land of these illegal numbers houses."

April 06, 2010