Chamber Says Tax Regime Must be Fair and Firm

The tax system remains a concern for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, whose members often pay more than their fair share of taxes. They have long complained that the system is biased and unfair to businesses, and today’s news was taken stoically by Chamber President Nikita Usher. He told us that if the Government played fair with tax collection at an earlier date, then it wouldn’t have cause to raise more taxes from the Belizean people.

On the Phone: Nikita Usher, President, Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry

“That has been an longstanding concern of the Chamber; we feel that the tax system needs to be administered in the right way. We continue to lament that there are very few of us who are paying our taxes; and there are those who are escaping in the tax system. Time and time again we have insisted that the system has to be one that is fair across the board, and that is why I earlier mentioned to you that we do not see any sort of an attempt to arrest that leakage of revenues from the Government system. We feel that the administration of the system needs to be tightened, and that, to our mind, if it was done fairly and across the board – which was in our paper – would have perhaps not resulted in some of the tax increases we see today.”