JAMAICAN HOTEL MAGNATE Gordon “Butch” Stewart says Barbados and other Caribbean countries need to avoid imposing burdensome taxes.
In the same way that “too much weight” will stop a racehorse from winning, burdening an industry with taxation will retard progress, Stewart told business leaders attending yesterday’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon at Hilton Barbados.
He said heavy taxation was a major problem in the Caribbean. It adversely impacted the condition of the product, and businesses’ ability to improve, modernise and to employ people, he charged.
If businesses were not doing well, it would also translate into lower tax payments to the Government, he argued, adding that heavy taxation had the disadvantage of making businesses “less competitive”.
