Gains for Formalized Businesses

Dr. Leroy Almendarez

Doctor Almendarez also spoke about BELTRAIDE’s efforts to gather data on the number of informal businesses in Belize. While they estimate that informal business accounts for some forty percent of the market, this still needs to be verified. Doctor Almendarez is encouraging informal businesses to register their companies, not only for tax purposes, but also to gain access to BELTRAIDE support and other government support initiatives.

Dr. Leroy Almendarez, Executive Director, BELTRAIDE

“Under BELTRAIDE  we have close to two thousand, but let me add here is that sometime it’s the rules that make them want to not do business because they are too complicated. So, there are a lot of simplifications of the rules, and these are government initiatives. The other thing I want to see is that more of the businesses that are informal decides to transition to formal, because there are benefits to it. It is not only to tax you. It is easier to provide service and support to you if we know where you are and can contact you. Many of these businesses will not reach the threshold for being GST or paying taxes it is just a matter to register. There are programs we have like the MSME Enhancement program where you can get packaging and labeling materials. But, to do that you have to be formal because you need a tin number to get access to Customs Asycuda. We do want them to transition as much as possible. Just recently we were trying to get statistics on the number of informal in the county and we are not sur. We figure it could be around forty percent, but we are not sure. But we do want to gather the base, because a lot of the initiatives by the government, foundationally, will utilize the MSME sector for growth.”