NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Inland Revenue officials yesterday warned that the department will exercise all of its powers under the law to recoup millions in outstanding taxes owed to the government.
Shunda Strachan, acting controller of the Department of Inland Revenue yesterday noted that the department has garnished wages, seized property and will soon begin exercising its power of sale on non-owner occupied properties where tax arrears have been outstanding for several years.
During a press conference at the Inland Revenue Department to outline the revenue collector’s enforcement campaign, Strachan noted that infractions that have been highlighted include businesses not applying for business licenses, not reporting accurate turnover, not registering for VAT having gone over the $100,000 threshold and charging VAT but not remitting the revenue to the government.
“The department has stepped up its enforcement campaign. We went through the season of inviting businesses in, recommending payment plans for real property tax. We did a lot of amnesties and offered incentives to persons just to kind of regularize and satisfy their tax obligations. That has now ended,” Strachan explained.
“We are not in that season anymore. The DIR has a whole lot of power it can utilize. One of the things we have used is garnishment where we have been freezing bank accounts,” Strachan said, noting that the DIR receives data from the commercial banks to aid in the investigations.
With regard to real property tax arrears which amount to some $600 million, Strachan revealed that the DIR has engaged 10 private collectors to aid in collecting outstanding taxes. She explained that the law also allows for the Inland Revenue Department to sell prorates, except those that are owner-occupied and owned by Bahamians.
“It has taken us some time to get to this point where we will begin to initiate the power of sale sanctions. It’s not only foreign-owned prorates that the department has the right to initiate the power of sale on. We have given properties owners a long period in which to satisfy or get their real property tax obligations in check and we are now at the point where we are moving to the power of sale,” said Strachan, who further revealed that some properties have real property tax arrears dating back five, 10 and even 20 years.
Referencing the recent exercise on Harbour Island involving two businesses, she warned that the deparment is exercising its power to search and seize property in an effort to collect outstanding taxes.
“We did some investigations on Harbour Island and we’re not done. In terms of revenue, it’s over $3 million in terms of businesses we have started to review. There are even more businesses we are looking at. Some of them started to come in after we did the initial investigations,” said Strachan, noting that some nine businesses on Harbour Island are being audited by the DIR and preliminary investigations are being carried out on three businesses on mainland Eleuthera.
Strachan admitted the DIR is challenged with staffing on the family islands, although the government has committed to increasing its staffing levels.
“We have approval to hire about 70 additional staff in the family islands. We only have three real strong offices in the family islands, namely Grand Bahama, Exuma and Abaco but not up to the staffing level we need.We brought on about 100 persons last yearbut we’re still not at the necessary staff complement.”
According to Strachan, there are 281 persons employed with the DIR.
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