Prime Minister Dean Barrow has announced that a new Statutory Instrument has been signed to provide for stiffer penalties for businesses who evade paying GST.
The Prime Minister made the announcement on Wave Radio’s “Fus Ting da Mawning” where he explained that on Tuesday April 13th he signed a new statutory instrument which will see penalties for non compliance with GST regulations increased. Former penalties for non- compliance to GST
regulations was 500 dollars as a penalty. That has now been raised to a minimum of 5 thousand dollars and up to 10 thousand dollars with the possibility of imprisonment to those who fail to adhere to GST regulations.
Among those regulations says the Prime Minister is the requirement to have cash registers and the provision of receipts to customers when making purchases. The PM pointed out that it was a difficult decision to have had to raise the price of GST and “the worst thing is for us to have the Belizean people bear the burden and then have merchants rip off the government so that instead of this additional monies that the tax payers have to find going to the government, for the government in turn provide improved goods and services to the people, the moneys ends up finding its way into the pockets of unscrupulous business people”
The Prime Minister added that government is serious about collecting its fair share of taxes and has committed to increase the staff at the GST department by adding two more staff members to conduct inspections and audits for the department. There is also the possibility of lowering the threshold for businesses to register for GST from 75 thousand dollars to 54 thousand dollars. That however is only being contemplated and for now the focus will be on seeing how the new collection efforts and the changes in legislation as well as the addition of staff will work before that is done.
