B.T.L. pays delinquent business tax, will negotiate with Belmopan

The company, one of Belize’s largest, had withheld its payment of millions of dollars in business tax as a set off against what it says was an unattained guaranteed rate of return promised by the previous government. And while the media anxiously awaited a confrontation between B.T.L. and the Income Tax Department at Magistrates’ Court this morning … it never happened. According to Tax Department Senior Bailiff Luis Requena, on Monday the company paid its overdue January bill of one point five million dollars and the charges were withdrawn.

Luis Requena, Senior Bailiff, Income Tax Department
“B.T.L. has always been compliant with the payment of taxes so it’s something new. Why it happens or why this take effect I just really don’t know. But they have always been compliant with taxes.”

Marion Ali
“So they’re now in good standing with the Income Tax?”

Luis Requena
“Well, I wouldn’t say so you know because they still have two months outstanding.”

These two outstanding months as well as future payments were the subject of comments in the House today as Prime Minister Barrow briefed his colleagues on efforts to defuse the situation between B.T.L. and Belmopan.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“We have agreed that a series of discussions will now take place, perhaps starting as early as the end of this week. Initially, I have asked the financial secretary and the legal consultant in the finance ministry, Mister Gian Ghandi, to represent the government. B.T.L. will be represented certainly by its C.E.O. I don’t know who else would make up the B.T.L. team. This is in an effort to find a way forward because of course, the summons that was issued was in respect of the business tax for January. Business tax, from our point of view, is also owing for February and for March and by now for April. We will not issue any additional summonses immediately to see if the process of discussions that will start will get anywhere.”

B.T.L. pays a special rate of nineteen percent business tax, the highest in the country. When, at the urging of the Musa government, Michael Ashcroft repurchased the company following Jeffrey Prosser’s failure to come up with the purchase price, government allegedly gave Ashcroft the same concessions offered to Prosser. Those, ostensibly enshrined in a secret agreement, include a guaranteed fifteen percent rate of return.