CITCO and Belmopan in dispute over VAT

The ongoing battle between the Belize City Council and Central Government may have been off the front pages for a few weeks but it doesn’t mean that the two have buried the hatchet. The latest dispute centers around the payment of VAT. A number of CITCO’s creditors have discovered that bills paid by City Hall have come in… but minus the familiar fifteen percent. Sources at the Council tell News Five that a directive to not pay VAT has been ordered by the mayor, because they say, the City is in negotiations with the VAT Unit to be declared VAT exempt. People in the Ministry of Finance tell News Five, however, that the City has received an additional subvention to allow it to pay the VAT and should thus pay up. The problem in this scenario is that while the City and Government continue to point their fingers, the people who are short changed are those businesses and individuals who sold the vatable items in the first place. Even though they have not been paid the VAT by the City they must still pay the fifteen percent levy to the VAT Unit promptly on the fifteenth of the month. Nobody on either side of this dispute could be contacted or was willing to speak on the record. It is not known whether their reluctance is due to malice, fear or simply embarrassment that so many grown men and women continue to act like children.