Telemedia Profits dipped because of exorbitant taxes

It is still not clear if telephone rates will go down or if GOB will allow the introduction of VOIP, what is said is that profits dipped in 2008 at Telemedia. Boyce told News Five this resulted from the exorbitant taxes Telemedia had to pay, the highest in the region, and that there was a general decrease in international calls.

Dean Boyce, Former Chairman, Executive Committee, B.T.L.
“There were a lot fewer calls, international calls for example, although that could have been the impact of other things but the economy is certainly a big factor. The big reason where there would be a reduction in profits is because the business tax payments have increased by fifty percent, in 2009 versus the previous year. We had an agreement with government, so we thought, that was set up back in 2005 and it said we will bring your tax down to sensible levels. The levels we are currently paying are typically five times higher than a normal telephone operations would anywhere else in the world, including the region because of the way they were calculated. The expectation was that if the country was to get reduced tariffs in line with other countries, then you need to make the conditions here in Belize similar to what they are in other countries—taxation is a big one. So the government agreed that by 2008, it was a three year period, they would bring the tax down to similar levels comparable to other countries. And, first of April 2008 came along and we started to pay what we thought was supposed to be the correct tax. And we were paying twenty five percent for revenue by the time we got to this year and we paid all the penalties, all the interests, all the other payments up to twenty five percent of revenue and now we’ve been up to date for a few months.”