OK so in the morning with my first sale of the day ...do I charge 12.5% GST????????

Up to you but yer gonna pay 12.5%...

Spot on. Except that I read that the change is not law yet.....

Hummmmmm it seems this would be a big news idem.
Is this for sure?

I'm charging 12.5% and assume GST will expect to collect the same from you. If it deceases, you can always refund to clients credit card. Cover your ass.

kt

I'm plunging it in the excel formulas right now.

It wouldn't be so bad if they had given a few months notice to prepare. But no, they had to do it right in the busiest time of the year with almost no notice. I don't see where they've posted a list of what items have changed either, are we supposed to guess?

Hopefully your Excel formulas are easier than mine Elbert, I'm looking at 20 hours plus of work to change our order form and the macros. And what do I tell my pre-bookings on the old order form - oh jeez I'm sorry the government upped the tax. Nope, I'm going to have to eat it.

What a bunch of pricks.

Chamber Explains Opposition to Tax Increases

With seven in favour and five opposed, yesterday the Senate ratified the General Revenue and Appropriations Bill – known to most of us as “the budget”. So now with the Governor General’s assent – the new tax measures come into effect tomorrow. That will include most prominently an increase in the rate of the General Sales Tax from 10 to 12 point 5 percent – or two and a half cents on every dollar. The Chamber of Commerce remains bitterly opposed to the package of tax measures and yesterday the Senator representing the Business Sector Godwin Hulse voted against the bill. Today he along with other Chamber execs explained their reasons for opposing the tax increases.

Keith Swift Reporting,
In their eight page letter to the Prime Minister, the Chamber says the effect of the new tax measures will be disastrous.

Celene Cleland-Gomez, General Manager - Chamber of Commerce
“They are telling us we can’t handle anymore. Essentially that is the bottom line. We are done. We have been providing and applying the laws as they need to be applied and we simply do not have anymore to give.”

Jim Scott, Vice President – Chamber of Commerce
“The new taxes are going to heavily affect the small mommy and pop operations which in turn as my colleagues pointed out will affect the general public and for the larger operations that might be able to weather the storm, if the storm clears, are going to have to lay off. We are in the midst of an economic crisis.”

Celene Cleland-Gomez,
“Quite a few of them I think more than fifty percent of them sampled indicated to us that we have had to borrow money last year to pay our recurrent expenditures. That is not sustainable and that situation will only get worse if indeed we have this increase in taxes. A consumer tax is also applied on some inputs that businesses use to make their product which then makes the product more expensive. So it does not only affect consumers in the purest sense of the word, it is across the board because it is all inextricably linked.”

Amparo Masson, President – Chamber of Commerce
[ i]“As it is right now I think what affected the budget last year that contributed to the shortfall is the buying power or the diminished buying power of consumers and what this is going to do is diminish it even further and affecting businesses in the process.”[/i]

And so what should government do? Well the Chamber says they can’t start by cutting expenses.

Celene Cleland-Gomez,
“We don’t quite understand why quite a large amount of the increase over last year will be applied to personal emoluments, an increase in public service remuneration. That is what we don’t understand because in the private sector when you are in a recessionary situation and you are faced with austerity measures, you have to look at either freezing or reducing what are some of the biggest cost which is employees. We don’t understand why you need to increase public spending with a big chunk of it going to personal emoluments in these times.”

And that is why yesterday the Business Sector Senator Godwin Hulse voted against budget.

Senator Godwin Hulse,
“I chose to vote not to support what was presented because that is the business community’s decision and there are some fundamentals to it. First of all government is proposing to spend $960 million and will have some difficulty raising that money. Even with the additional $109 million that is being raised from taxes, they are still $127 million and that $127 million is assuming somebody gives us $23 million in grants because if we don’t get that $23 million then we are $150 million short. So really let’s get real – we need to trim our sales. We need to sit down with all the stakeholders and look realistically at how we are going to move ahead. For years and years we’ve been running short of money to even pay recurrent expenses. We can’t even afford Capital II and Capital III. We cannot pay our loans, we can’t continue like this business as usual and hope it rights itself.

I am calling for a consensus, for a roundtable, whatever you want to call it, stakeholders to sit down and talk this thing through and seriously say where government is going. There is no sense in putting up a lot of wish list and you don’t know how you’re going to pay for it. That is what we are doing.”

Keith Swift,
“Government blames a lot of problems on the Superbond. Do you agree?”

Senator Godwin Hulse,
“I do not. When you look at the superbond, let’s put the superbond in perspective and please don’t edit this. Put it in perspective. The Superbond is an amalgamation of 15 previous bonds ranging from 2002 right through to 2006. When 2006 came and government found a serious debt servicing problem because they were balloon payments some of them popping in now, they restructured the debt. That exercise in itself was a good exercise. That exercise in itself has helped us so the superbond is not the issue, people need to get that clear. It was the bonds that made up the superbond and why we had to borrow them and what they did with the money that created the problem.”

Keith Swift,
“So your vote yesterday was symbolic?”

Senator Godwin Hulse,
“Oh yes the Senate’s vote on money bills are always only symbolic. But it registered the position of the business community that we do not agree. That is what it really says, we do not agree with it but it has no effect and it is not going to change anything. The Governor General is probably penning it is as I am speaking.”

And so with the bill passed, the Chamber says they will be going back to their members for guidance.

Amparo Masson,
“We were hoping that government would sit down with us to discuss the issues because we know that we have a responsibility to pay our taxes, I don’t think we are shying away from that, but we need to sit down, look at the issues, and work together to see if we should move forward with it. Our next step is to actually to go to membership and get their guidance.”

The letter was sent to the Prime Minister on Thursday March 25th. They have yet to receive a response.

http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=16600

I keep waiting for Borrows to say, 'April Fool!'

Wish it was a joke, this will further slowly strangle the Belize economy. Here are the amendments with comments from Wilfred Rhaburn, CPA: Applicable Tax Amendments per April 1, 2010. Interesting is that this morning the San Pedro Tax office said that it is not a law yet and we should not charge the increase, while Belize City said we do have to increase!