And the first subject discussed at today's press conference were the changes in the structure for assessing trade license fees. It's legislation drafted out of a three year review at the municipal and central government level. The bill has already gone to the house for a first reading, and after revision by the House Committee, the Mayor today presented the full and final schedule of fees. He said he's not a fan of the system that the lawmakers used - but then went unto call it "magic." You decide:
Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"According to this table every business should experience according to the table as much as a 30% reprieve. The reform that has been undertaken is not something that are one hundred percent comfortable with. What you have is a bridging. There is still a range in relation for the fee, but there is a great degree of certainly to it, because there is fix fee."
"We are moving away from the existing law which provides for 25% of your annual rental value and in replacement of that there will be a fix fee. So for example if your rental value is $1,000- $4,000, your fix fee may be $200 and this is what I believe is the magic of the legislation, that notwithstanding the fact that we still have kinks and there is still a need to conduct additional reform, the law places a fix fee. So no member of the business community has to "guesstimate" in relation to what fee this city council will ascribe as your tax."
"The idea with this reform is that we want it to be purely mathematical and we want it to grave a great degree of certainty and predictability to the regime. Again, it is not perfect for Belize City. We will experience a loss, but you would have seen that over the last year we have put in place certain mechanisms to make up that loss."
"Currently we collect about 4.23 million dollars or 4.6 million dollars in trade license revenue per annum. Our greatest analysis has shown that that may fall to 1 million dollars."
And a lot of those losses will result from large businesses paying far less since the new schedule of fees tops out at 60,000 dollars - meaning 66% less for at least one business that's paying $180,000.
The legislation is expected to go back to the house for final readings and approval tomorrow.
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