BECOL Exempted from Taxes, PM Says It’s Nothing Unusual

Dean Barrow

Barrow also told the media that at the time when government took over B.E.L., Belize Electric Company Limited was not on the table and that the government will never go after the Fortis-owned company. When quizzed today, the PM also disclosed that Fortis was being exempted from various taxes, saying there was nothing out of the ordinary about the concessions.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Fortis will pay no withholding tax on their dividends. That is not special; no shareholder, nobody who holds shares in B.E.L. pays withholding tax because that was a position that in fact was offered to all shareholders by the P.U.P. from the commissioner of income tax declaring that that is the law; that is how it is and has been for ten years or so. With respect to the payment that we gave to Fortis by way of the settlement; this is a form of compensation. There is no tax liability on judgment debt. There is no tax liability on the payment of compensation. We passed a law that governs compensation and if you look at that it would make it clear, is no tax liability on compensation so again there is nothing special that we have done for Fortis. On the transfer of shares, there is no tax on the transfer of shares when government is the transferor. So nothing that they can point to is other than what obtains for anybody in similar circumstances. And let me just repeat, how could they call it secret when it was all disclosed and put on the table—both at the time of the press conference and at the time of the debate that was held in the National Assembly both in the House and the senate when the law was passed. Look don’t allow them in their last gasp, in their last efforts to try and gain the traction that has eluded them since the start of this and for this entire almost eleven months that transpired. Don’t allow them to use what is stale, what is not new and what has no validity to try to employ that to generate momentum for themselves that simply is not there.”