CAUTION: repeal Tourism Levy Act

PUMP the brakes!

Words of caution from former Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy who believes government should repeal the Tourism Levy Act, and the imposition of taxes that are putting added pressure on an already stressed tourism sector.

He was speaking to a meeting held by the St. James South branch of the Democratic Labour Party ,which was held at the Queen’s College school over the weekend, where he addressed a number of tourism-related matters. Sealy stated that when the additional taxes were announced back in 2018, he knew it was going to be problematic.

“I called a friend and I said this is a mistake. When you have a goose that lays golden eggs, you don’t cut it up in parts ... because you are hungry. You don’t do that. The tourism industry was growing in the right direction and why would you go and saddle taxes on the front end. Tax the outputs, don’t tax the inputs.”

“We went through this with the Airline Passenger Duty and I can tell you a lot of the recovery that we saw out of that UK market...we had to do some brow-beating to get the UK government to accept the need for the re-branding and after that we did see the needle move.”

He charged that as a result of the increased taxes, repeat guests are complaining and warned that they have other destinations from which they can choose.

“In my own view, you have to deal with issues in the UK with the pound [sterling], you have to deal with issues in the US with a US presidential election going on this year, and now as if that isn’t enough you have now COVID 19 and all of those elements. I believe that Tourism Levy Act should be repealed. Even though it only became an Act earlier this year it should be repealed for the time being. Pump the brakes,” he said.

“This is an extremely difficult period we are going to be going through and you don’t need to give people any added reason to look past you and to go elsewhere. I think in the interest of remaining internationally competitive that is what we should do.”

Sealy said that it was the former government’s philosophy to remove the imposts from the inputs, concessions to make the inputs more affordable, and any taxing could be done on the outputs side of the equation.

He suggested that this current administration could have taken another look at Corporate Tax.

“I know this government has practically abolished Corporate Tax... I did not agree with that. I think that even for moral reasons, when you have ordinary Barbadians soaking up so much tax, you didn’t have to do that. And it is not that I have something against people making money. I’m not saying that.”

Referring to the BLP’s manifesto promise to refund the Municipal Solid Waste Tax over a period of time, he suggested that instead, government could have lowered the Corporate Tax rate over a period time. “And that would in essence allow you to keep that sector more globally competitive. Those levies are a problem,” he reiterated.

“They [tourists] have options, not only in the Caribbean, The Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Maldives, Mauritius. We see what the Emirates are doing. There are options, they don’t have to come here. I think that is an area that the government to my mind will be forced to look at.”

“I sincerely hope we don’t have other businesses falling by the wayside in tourism or any sector,” he stated. (JH)