Tax-Free Weekend Attracts Thousands of Belizean Shoppers

The first of two GST-free shopping weekends this Christmas season wrapped up on Sunday, with thousands of shoppers flocking to stores across the country. Belizeans took advantage of the tax-free days on December fourteenth and fifteenth to buy groceries, electronics, and other household appliances. This shopping frenzy was made possible by a statutory instrument that came into effect on Friday, allowing approved goods to be sold at zero percent general sales tax. However, the weekend wasn’t without its hiccups. Several reports of noncompliance surfaced, with some store owners trying to dodge the waiver by backdating receipts or insisting that customers pay cash for their purchases. Earlier today, News Five caught up with Michelle Longsworth, Director General of the Belize Tax Services, to discuss these issues.

 

Michelle Longsworth, Director General, Belize Tax Services

“This past weekend, the fourteenth and the fifteenth, saw the first two days for that tax-free days.  The tax-free days not only provided immediate financial relief for the public, but it also, it served as a critical tool for BTS, for us to identify areas like non-compliance where we needed to strengthen enforcement and also refine taxpayers’ knowledge.  That is important for us.  So, we look at this whole aspect of these tax-free days as a balancing relief to taxpayers with enhanced administration insight.  So this initiative delivered benefits that extended beyond, I think beyond the primary goal of just tax relief to the final consumer but also supporting government’s broader objectives for fiscal responsibility and fairness.  And I think that is important for us to stress. A number of noncompliance reports were made in certain stores and this was across the country, not only Belize City, and, as you rightly said, you had some refusing to honor the GST exemption on eligible goods.  You had some who were selectively applying the GST exemption, and then I think there was some misinterpretation because I think taxpayers are not fully of what are zero-rated items and what are standard-rated items.  So when they saw that receipt they were a bit confused as to what attracted the GST.  So when they didn’t see the full 12.5% on the total sales, we had to be explaining to some of them that the receipt would either be reflecting items that said Z, which means zero-rated; G, which means GST, and you’d have to total just the GST items.  But I will say that the real-time problem resolution that we assisted with was through our hotlines. So the minute we got reports, we dispatched our officers to these businesses and I will say that most of the businesses were receptive and complied after intervention, even though for some of the businesses we had to do repeated visits.”