But, months later one consumer who may have been happy to celebrate the end of the tax on femininity found out that it hadn't quite come to an end. We pick up the story there with the receipt that really got the ball rolling on the PM's promise. Cherisse Halsall has the story:

You may remember this triumphant moment from the budget reading earlier this year.

John Briceno, Prime Minister Of Belize
"Effective the 1st of April all taxes will be removed from sanitary products for women. It is past time that we put an end to taxing women's femininity something she contributed to young Seidi Quetzal, who is running a campaign don't tax my femininity, Seidi could you please stand up, you and the Special Envoy."

But it wasn't exactly April 1st; it was actually April 8th. That's when the SI that made the amendment to the General Sales Tax Act was finally Gazetted.

And it is only a GST exemption because as the Fin Sec explained to us they cannot unilaterally remove the tariffs.

posted (April 20, 2023)
Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary
"There are several taxes. The easy one which we already signed the S.I. to remove is the GST so that when it comes to import duty we belong to Caricom we belong to the Carom external tariff. We'd have to get a waiver from quota I understand the waiver quoted I understand the waiver has been applied for and is being looked at favourably."

But what's happening on the ground?

Well, one consumer posted her experience to social media in a move that made the store owners at 88 shopping centre vow to remove the G.S.T. that they had still been charging.

And after that, we went shopping to see if 88 had indeed kept that pledge.

This afternoon we were pleasantly surprised to find that they had.

But we didn't stop there, instead, we headed to a shop in a whole other neighbourhood where it seemed GST was still reflected on the receipt for these pantyliners.

But in this instance the shop owner explained that while that 0.78 was still showing up on the receipt the store was the one taking that hit not the consumer. A quick check of our change confirmed that we had not been charged GST, and off we went to yet another store.

But this is where it got interesting. We picked up this 34-pack of Tampax Pearl, perhaps the most expensive female sanitary product you can buy on the Belizean market but this one was on sale.

Checkout through revealed that that sale price wasn't making up for $3.21 in unsanctioned GST.

And once we were done with our sting operation we doubled back to get a comment from the store manager, Alma Aldana but she said that GST had been charged by the supplier, Price Premier products.

But we contacted Price Premier's Operations Manager and she didn't agree, telling us via text that, quote: GST was removed from feminine pads by GOB. It was implemented on 8th May."

And when we pressed her on whether they were still charging GST to stores like Save U Marsden said quote: "We zero the charge in our system. All stores should have removed the GST effective May 8th 2023, we did as the importer." End quote.

So we doubled back to the big boss Santiago Castillo Jr himself to ask him why the GST was still attached to the line of feminine products sold in his stores. Late this evening he reached out via text to confirm that he and his team would remove the GST saying quote: " Confirmed with GST, that supplier should reimburse us if they charged tax & we can proceed to remove from products." End quote.

So the moral of this story is...check your receipts - and make sure that GST is NOT being added to your feminine hygiene products.