The Belize City Council held a public consultation today unveiling their proposed plan to reform the current trade license system. These changes have not yet been finalized, however, and the City Council has opened discussions for public input and consultation - on what may result higher trade license fees:...
Darrell Bradley, Mayor - Belize City
"Well, we are having a series of consultations. We have been working with the Chamber of Commerce, Ministry of Local Government, the Economic Development Council of the Central Government to try to look at a ways that we can reform the trade license. The consultant then put together a proposal that we want to release, that we have released today for public consumption, input, and feedback. The main idea is that we want to make the trade license system more predictable, more fairer, and cheaper."
"One of the things that we are looking at is - I think that government has too much of an emphasis on taxation as a revenue source. But the 
idea is that if you create a more facilitative business environment you are going to benefit for numbers. So right now we have about 2,250 people paying the trade license in Belize City. If we have cheaper rates, we may attract more businesses to come in so that you may actually make up that shortfall which is roughly a million dollars. You may make up that shortfall by attracting or generating new businesses. We also see that we have a significant amount of businesses off the books in Belize. Businesses that are not operating within the regulatory system. If those businesses come on stream and they pay their $75 per year that may be a significant increase. We are also looking at other sources of areas of efficiency where we can quite easily generate additional sources of revenues."
Mayor Darrel Bradley says that these reforms are only the first step in a larger plan to create a better system of implementing trade licenses.
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