What The Christmas Shopping GST Waiver Won’t Cover  

This Christmas, you can look forward to some serious savings thanks to the government’s GST waiver on a wide range of items, from groceries and home appliances to building materials and more. However, there are a few exceptions to this festive offer. Deputy Director General of the Belize Tax Department, Vilma Broaster, has outlined the goods and services that aren’t included. She also reminded retailers to clearly show the GST fee on their prices, so customers can see on their receipts that they weren’t charged.

 

Vilma Broaster, Deputy Director General, Belize Tax Department

“It does not apply to the service industry. So people in the service industry are narrowly where your goods are, where your service is taxable. This legislation does not apply. It also does not apply to goods on consignment or others sold on a wholesale basis, the supply of goods on credit installment and higher purchase. Others for goods that are not in stock. The supply of motor vehicles, gasoline, LPG, and diesel, guns, ammunition, cigarettes, and alcoholic beverages. Persons had asked whether or not Motorcycle was exempted, and the answer is no, they are not exempted. They fall on the motor vehicles day as well as mobile phone top-ups and plans are classified as services and so these will not be exempted. Retailers are reminded that the price must be GST inclusive, so, your price displayed must reflect the GST so that the final consumer can actually see indeed that you are removing the GST from the product. So, we have a television as we had indicated value that 1125 GST inclusive. So, the consumer will then only pay a thousand dollars when they go to make that purchase on those days that we have designated as exempted days.”