Weekend Report | The Freeport News | PDF Online Guide
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Home
National
Sports
Business
Lifestyles
Religion
Arts & Culture
Pulse
Spice
Editorial
letters
Opinion
Foodie
Sportscope
Real Talks
Weekend Report
PDF's
Classifieds
Contact
About Us
Archive
Weather
|
||
|
||
 |
|
The final real property tax amendments are... By INDERIA SAUNDERS ~ Guardian Business Reporter ~ Inderia@nasguard.com: It appears a roller coaster ride for Realtors seeking real property tax caps has finally come to an end — but only after the twists and turns of three separate amendment attempts ended in compromise. Indeed, yesterday's government announcement may signal the end of the battle between the administration and local Realtors, with Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham rethinking the move to apply a 1 percent tax on properties valued up to $7.5 million. A 0.25 percent rate was then to have been applied to any remaining value in excess of that $7.5m. Instead, the government will apply a tax rate of 1 percent on the first $5 million of a property's value and then tax any amount in excess of that same 0.25 percent rate. That's after an exemption on the first $250k of house. All told, it means for homes $5 million and over, the government stands to receive a minimum $50,000 annually. Realtors had in fact wanted the government to reapply a tax cap of $35k, arguing it would have made the destination more attractive to uber-rich foreign buyers. The controversial changes are seen as a way of shoring up revenue collection, which has fallen off precipitously over the last eight months. However, Realtors argue they need all the help they can get in shifting multimillion-dollar estates in this recession. "In this economy, government should be encouraging people to buy, not discourage them and the [present] real property tax [structure] is a deterrent," President of the Bahamas Real Estate Association (BREA) William Wong told Guardian Business last week after hearing of pending changes. "The government needs to stimulate the economy by dropping these taxes."
Thursday, June 25, 2009 |
|
|
|