NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Inland revenue officials yesterday confirmed that several boats, cars, golf carts, cases of beer and other assets were seized in the department’s first ‘search and seizure’ operation this week.
John Williams, communications lead at the Inland Revenue Department, told Eyewitness News: “We commenced our first search and seizure operation on Harbour Island with two businesses Aundre’s and Conch and Coconut.”
“We had a compliance and enforcement team consisting of persons from various units at Inland Revenue and we were accompanied by The Royal Bahamas Police Force. For Aundre’s there were some 30 golf carts, three sea craft and some info off of their computers seized,” Williams revealed.
“For Conch and Coconut we seized over 100 cases of Sands Beer, some bottles of Vodka, three golf carts and some additional assets such as boats and cars confiscated later on. It was basically for underreporting of VAT and business licenses. According to their files, they should have been reporting some significant funds.”
Back in January, Inland Revenue officials announced that the department would be placing greater focus on verifying the gross turnover of businesses across the country, as they expressed serious doubt that only 9,000 of the nearly 50,000 registered businesses have an annual gross turnover of $100,000 or more.
Businesses with an annual gross turnover of $100,000 plus are required by law to be Value-Added tax (VAT) registrants.
Williams noted that the department has more search and seizure exercises planned.
“We are about to roll out our communications around all the things we can do including seizures, freezing assets, and that sort of thing,” he said.
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