On Wednesday evening, the Prime Minister was the guest at a business mixer with the membership of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He discussed a number of issued including disaster recovery funding from the IDB, the IMF’s recent visits and the amendments to the business tax that’s coming into law before the end of the year.
As we’ve told you, it affects telephone companies, but what it seems no one knew is that also tucked in there are new taxes that impose heavy burdens on real estate developers and tourism interests. The tax on commissions and royalties – the type that would be collected by travel agents and tour operators would go up to 15% - and that is from 1.75%. Coming at a time when tourist arrivals are down that didn’t go over well with the gathering – and we are told that – on the spot - the Prime Minister agreed to relent from that proposal. We were unable to confirm this with his office today.
There may also be adjustments on the rates of business tax for real estate developers and condominium owners, long term leases, time share operators and share transfers. All those were slated for increases.
