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THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2024
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Business Licences: Up to 20% facing extra scrutiny By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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UP to one in five Business Licence filings are facing extra scrutiny by the tax authorities, it was revealed yesterday, with construction, landscaping and “home based” auto dealers causing particular concern. Dexter Fernander, the Department of Inland Revenue’s (DIR) operations manager, told Tribune Business the agency is especially zeroing in on “discrepancies” where there is a “15 percent or more variance” between a company’s Business Licence turnover figures and that derived from their VAT filings. With the Department able to calculate a company’s annual turnover based on its VAT payments, he signalled that it is using this and other “third party databases” made accessible via its upgraded tax administration
portal to “cross-check” and better verify the accuracy and integrity of Business Licence filings. Revealing that the Government’s main revenue agency is “a little concerned” about specific industries, Mr Fernander told this newspaper it was working to try and understand how sub-contractors in the construction industry can be reporting higher annual turnovers than the main project contractors who hired them.
And he disclosed that he is “delving into” the operations of road-side ‘Mom and Pop’ automobile vendors. Mr Fernander said that, while vehicles acquired at overseas auctions were being imported under company names, the individuals involved are often deny that their money is involved and, instead, allege that they are acting merely as agents for buyers who wire money to them in their name. “We have asked individuals to be more realistic and truthful,” he told Tribune Business
of Business Licence declarations. “Why are you declaring zero turnover for three consecutive years. If you are a landscaping company, how are you paying your staff on zero turnover? “We’re looking at maybe 15-20 percent [of Business Licence] applications that we have to offload and do some research into. Those that have discrepancies and have variances of more than 15 percent, or persons reporting the same turnover for the last three years and no supporting documents, or uploaded information to justify why turnover is zero.....” Mr Fernander explained that the 15 percent referred to the magnitude of the difference between a company’s annual turnover, as calculated via its VAT returns and payments, and the turnover figure submitted for calculating its annual Business Licence fee.
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Albany chief faces ‘largest insider trading’ fine for decade at $50m By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamas-based billionaire who led Albany’s development will pay “the largest financial penalty for insider trading in a decade” at $50m after he yesterday pleaded guilty to perpetrating a securities fraud. Joe Lewis, the UK national who has been a Bahamas and
Lyford Cay resident since 1979, admitted that he was “so embarrassed” as he pled guilty before a Manhattan federal judge to insider trading and related conspiracy charges levied against him by US government attorneys. The 86 year-old also confessed that he knew what he did was wrong after tippingoff lovers, secretaries, friends and even his private pilots to purchase or offload various
corporate stocks using nonpublic information he accessed in his role as a major global investor. Mr Lewis, whose family trust is also majority owner of Tottenham Hotspur, the English Premier League club, told Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke that he agreed in 2019 to share secrets he knew about publicly-traded companies with
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JOE LEWIS
‘Moral imperative’ to boost financial watchdog’s staff By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Government’s top financial watchdog has warned that “insufficient” staffing and resources are undermining its ability to protect Bahamians and hold successive administrations to account. Terrance Bastian, the Auditor General, writing in his office’s report on the Government’s finances for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, revealed his team was challenged to conduct “comprehensive and timely audits” on more than 55 ministries, public agencies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) because it was 42 percent under-staffed.
The Auditor General’s Office finished that year with just 47 staff, as opposed to the authorised 81, leaving some 34 vacancies including the two senior deputy auditorgeneral posts that remained unfilled. Of the three authorised deputy auditor generals, just one post was filled, while there were only two of the required three assistant auditor generals on staff. As a result, Ms Bastian urged the Government to “allocate a dedicated Budget to address the staffing gap” within his office, arguing that such an investment was “not just a responsible fiscal choice but
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FTX peace terms approved by Bahamas and Delaware By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE peace deal between FTX’s Bahamian liquidators and their former US adversary has been approved by both the Supreme Court and Delaware Bankruptcy Court, it has been revealed. Judge John Dorsey yesterday signed an Order, seen by Tribune Business, approving the terms of the global settlement agreement between Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo, Kevin Cambridge and Peter
BRIAN SIMMS KC Greaves, in their capacities as FTX Digital Markets liquidators and John Ray. This newspaper also understands that Justice Loren Klein gave the
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Unpaid property taxes hit $690m at mid-2021 t %FTQJUF CFBUJOH UIBU ZFBS T UBSHFU CZ OFBS N t "VEJUPS (FOFSBM VSHFE ABHHSFTTJWF DPNQMJBODF t 5BY SPMM HSFX CZ QSPQFSUJFT JO mWF ZFBST By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net UNPAID real property tax arrears totalled $690m at end-June 2021 despite exceeding target by 37 percent that fiscal year, the Government’s top financial watchdog revealed yesterday. Terrance Bastian, the auditor general, in his report on the GovTERRANCE ernment’s finances for BASTIAN 2020-2021, which was tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday, urged the authorities to launch “aggressive compliance efforts and revenue enhancement initiatives” to slash an outstanding tax sum that was estimated to have grown by a further $79.41m that fiscal year. The Davis administration will likely argue it has done just that through the Department of Inland Revenue’s crackdown on foreign-owned and commercial property tax deadbeats, where it last year threatened to exercise its “power of sale” to seize, then selloff, real estate owned by chronic delinquents who have made no effort to pay for years. While it is unclear whether these warnings have had the desired effect, the Auditor General’s report for 2020-2021 suggested the effort led by US-based Tyler Technologies to properly map New Providence had increased the total number of properties on the tax roll by almost 24,000 - or 23.3 percent - to 126,317 over the five years to end-June 2021.
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