Opposition leader weighs in on imbalance in new taxes

John Briceño

All over Belizeans are reeling from the announcement of the new taxes to come on line beginning April first through which government will be raising close to one hundred and ten million dollars. Prime Minister Dean Barrow in his budget presentation on Monday confirmed that the revenues were necessary due to the sixty-one million dollar deficit. Even as the PM predicted, that it would be his government’s most difficult year, the new taxes are dealing a heavy hand and are non-discriminatory. The two point five percent increase in GST, through which government projects to raise forty-two million dollars, will be felt across the board.  Leader of the Opposition, John Briceño says that the two of the new taxes highlight the severe lack of balance in the PM’s approach to the economic hard times.

John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition

“It’s not only B.E.L. because what he is saying is that he is putting the tax on the producers of electricity. It’s not B.E.L.; it’s BELCOGEN, it’s Hydro Maya down south, it’s Barry Bowen’s plant Belize aquaculture. The major concern is in the north, BELGOCEN. BSI has just invested a hundred and twenty-six million dollars in a facility to burn the bagasse to produce electricity. So it’s marginal but here we are, we are putting a new tax, a new tax that is going from 1.75 percent to 6.5 percent. What does that mean? That is an increase of over two hundred and seventy percent, two hundred and seventy percent and for an investment that is just coming on line, that’s marginal and that BSI needs for them to survive and the sugar industry in the north to survive. Now here you’re going to extract more money from. Dehn noh even start to mek money yet and you’re already starting to—it is worrisome. And I don’t care what the prime minister says, if you are going to be taxing them a minimum of ten million—he saying its ten million—these service providers are going to find a way to pass that on to the consumer.”

“In the new taxes that he is implementing in the new fiscal year, he expects to collect a little bit over fifty-odd million dollars. Of that fifty plus million dollars, he is going to collect over forty-three million dollars from the Belizean people. That is seventy-three percent just of the new taxes that we Belizeans will have to take out from our pockets and give to the government. And he is telling us now that he is going to put in a new tax on the most—by far the most profitable company in Belize, BNE, the oil company. Remember when they were talking about dehn noh di feel di oil, well he is talking about putting a new tax on them so Belizean people noh worry we’re going to spread the pain around. But he is only going to collect one point eight million dollars, four percent. We Belizeans have to burden seventy-three percent of the new taxes, BNE – four percent. Where is the equity or as some would say, where is the love prime minister?”

Briceño also noted a similar trend in taxes imposed in the outgoing financial year, which ends March thirty-first. PM Barrow had introduced the new fuel tax on consumers and the windfall tax on BNE. That banked GOB thirty million dollars from consumers and not a single cent from BNE since the windfall tax on fuel did not materialize.

The new and additional taxes aside, the PM offered some exemptions, including waiving income tax on persons earning less than twenty-four thousand dollars per annum. Another is a list of goods that will be free from import duties. Briceño says any attempt to help struggling Belizeans is good, but the list of items is not considered in the basket of basic food items.

John Briceño

“If you look at the list, it’s umm… a lot of those things, what does the average Belizean buy from that? I think ih put something bout stoves and refridge; how often do you buy a stove or a refridge? How many Belizeans buy olive oil? How many of them live on corn flakes? Remember the country poverty assessment report that just came out this year has shown that unfortunately the level of poverty has increased. There are almost a hundred and forty thousand of us that are living right on the edge of poverty and can’t buy cornflakes. So while there is no problem in doing that and anything that you can do for the Belizean people is good, but he is still pulling out a hundred and nine million dollars from them.”

The debate on the budget takes place on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth of March.