Week two of the GST Waiver Weekends seems to have gone better than week one. That's according to the GST office which said it received fewer complaints because consumers seemed to have been better informed about what to expect. We spoke to the Deputy Director General:
Vilma Broaster, Deputy Director General - BTS
"So for this second weekend, it was not as bad as the previous weekend. We had less calls because consumers were able to identify the products that are standard rated and zero rated. The businesses had been compliant, so the GST exemption was being applied. It did go a lot better this weekend than last weekend."
Reporter
"Has the Belize Tax Service already been able to determine how much was given up by the government, at least in the first weekend?"
Vilma Broaster, Deputy Director General - BTS
"We can say that for a couple of businesses that we had received their information for, there was a big jump in what was being sold the first to the 13th when you compare the 14th to the 15th. So for some businesses, the 14th and the 15th covered more than what happened between the first to the 13th."
"So yes, we have seen some of that. As for the amount of loss, we really and truly can't see, like I said, until the filing of the return, the December return is done in January. And then we can see. Like I said, whilst the GST would have suffered a loss for those two, four weekends, the business tax should have increased because of the number of persons that were buying."
Jules Vasquez
"When we had spoken with the director general, she had indicated that the projected collection on those weekends would have been 2.5 million each weekend. So in effect, you all were passing up 5 million in taxes. Yes, with the hope to recover it, et cetera. Obviously, you know, the incentive stimulated a lot of volume in sales, which you would not have seen without that incentive. And so the amount loss far exceeds what was likely projected, because you know, you can't anticipate the effect of the incentive on how much it will stimulate sales, which it did at a very high level."
"Is it something that as a collector of tax, you all may eventually regret because, you know, all sales are final, all these things have gone off the shelf and will never be taxed, there'll never be a chance to tax them again."
"Do you all feel that maybe you lost too much revenue?"
Vilma Broaster, Deputy Director General - BTS
"Well, I I am not certain what we have a buffer so depending on what we have, what happened for this period of time we know it is something that we are we are worried about because indeed you had your target set for the financial year and then when you have these then that does reduce your target collection but we are hopeful that that little buffer that we had would still enable us to have met our target that was set for us."
"Nonetheless, we still can't say until the end of March what exactly our final collection was whether we exceeded or we actually just scrape by or we did not meet."
Jules Vasquez
"As a tax collector and tax administrator, is it something you will support doing again?"
Vilma Broaster, Deputy Director General - BTS
"Yes. Like I said I would support. We already know now what is required and if we give ample time for both consumers and business persons to know that it is coming, I think I will work a bit more easily."
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