Barbadians will not be paying taxes twice when online international companies start collecting value-added tax (VAT).
That is according to Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn, who spoke to the media on Thursday night following the opening of the Kooyman megastore at Kendal Hill, Christ Church.
In an effort to clear up the existing misconceptions of exactly how the tax would work for the public, he said while the online giant Amazon had registered with the Barbados Revenue Authority in November last year, discussions were ongoing as to how this administration would be collecting the tax.
“The web services proportion obviously speaks about the digital services part. Barbadians are obviously more concerned about the actual retailing side of it and it’s something that will obviously be phased in, because that is something that will come on stream afterward with respect to the actual retail side of it,” he explained.
The minister said the decision for Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) to start collecting taxes on behalf of the Government come next month, was the beginning of ongoing negotiations aimed at phasing in all commercial activity done online by Bajans, which was consistent with changes made last December to the VAT Act. (RA)
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