“New Taxes Stand to Cripple Creatives and Small Business Owners” – U.D.P.

Shyne Barrow

The proposed Trade License Bill that was introduced in the House of Representatives for first reading on Friday has been met with opposition in various quarters, including the business community and the entertainment industry.  This morning, during a press conference held by the United Democratic Party, Opposition Leader Shyne Barrow, himself a former performing artist, spoke on the crippling effect that levying additional taxes would have on these respective groups.  Barrow says that not only are the new taxes detrimental, they are also ill-timed given the gradual recovery from the economic impact of the pandemic.

Shyne Barrow, Opposition Leader

“Look at entertainers, an entertainer is lucky if they make two hundred dollars, three hundred dollars, five hundred dollars for the day.  Maybe some of the bigger artists might make a thousand.  Is the government truly thinking about the best interest of the people that elected them when we’re not even halfway recovered from COVID-19 and you will start to grab at the little that our people have?  Entertainers are underpaid as it is.  Look at peddlers, for so long, for two years we had curfew and I used to go in the house every opportunity and ask them to lift the curfew because people needed to be out there to catch and kill, for lack of a better word.  And now that we’re only a few weeks into the curfew being lifted, as soon as the peddlers are trying to get back two years of not generating anything we are going to come with a tax in the villages, in the towns and in the cities? Where is the timing?  Just like they took the ten percent from our public servants.  Where is the timing?  Where is the consideration for the struggle of the Belizean people who they had the antidote when they were trying to get into government.”

Michael Peyrefitte

Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, United Democratic Party

“This law was created a long time ago, we rejected that.  Somebody told them, noh worry, ih noh wahn apply to any village and they just took that.  I bet you, I bet the farm that they have not read that piece of legislation or they wouldn’t say what they said.  That’s my view on it anyway.”