By Brianna Bennett

Copyright greaterbelize

Simplify Taxes, Don’t Centralize Power, UDP Urges

Belize doesn’t need a new tax authority; it needs real tax reform. That’s the warning from the opposition as government pushes ahead with SARA, the Semiautonomous Revenue Authority. Critics argue the plan won’t fix the real problem, a complicated tax system that frustrates businesses and drives complaints of double taxation. Instead of creating another layer of control, they say, why not make the system simpler and fairer?

Patrick Faber, Lead Opposition Senator

“You cannot expect just the Ministry of Finance to be able to police this kind of thing. Instead, what the government should do is to try to simplify the tax system in this country. What this country needs is tax reform, we don’t need stronger implementation for collection. That’s what they are looking to do, they are looking to kill the goose that lays the golden egg when they implement SARA. If you listen to the business people, and many of you saw our young brother, Andrew Munnings complain so much so that the own government ministers or immediate past ministers of the government in their law practice have now taken on the challenge of defending the position of Andrew Munnings to say that there is tremendous issue with the tax collection system, the double taxation and all of that. That is what needs to be reformed and if we reform that and we make the taxation collection system in our country simpler, more revenue will get to the government without the government having to do this kind of thing.”