Urgent call

The head of one private sector body has suggested that there is a high level of uncertainty in the Barbados economy, resulting in very little investor confidence.
President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), Lalu Vaswani, has suggested that unless Government moves with some urgency in clarifying a number of tax-related issues, there will not be any improvement.
Vaswani made the comments yesterday at the BCCI’s monthly luncheon at Hilton Barbados. The theme was Doing Business In Today’s Economy: Evolve, Adapt, Transform.
He said the private sector was “surprised by the lack of timely clarifications” to several policy changes announced in the August 13, 2013 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals.
“I refer to the acknowledged error in the tax rate of the new municipal tax, as well as questions of interpretations of the also newly implemented consolidation tax. Questions have also been raised about the Inland Revenue’s legal authority to implement taxation policies which are at variance with what was enunciated in the Budgetary Proposals in Parliament,” said Vaswani.