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by pltm
(PLTM) - At a time when all of the sectors are recovering from the damages of the 2017 storms, especially businesses in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Opposition Leader, Hon. Andrew Fahie says that the territory is not a business-friendly place, and as such he is calling for mechanisms to be put in place to encourage investors and improve the investment environment—such as tax breaks for businesses.
Hon. Fahie made these calls recently during a radio broadcast, and repeated them during a press conference that he hosted.
“Make sure people want to do business here. We want to make sure that it is more a business friendly place. It is not a friendly place to do business in the Virgin Islands, I am sorry to say that, because I love my country…It is irritating,” he stated.
In trying to justify this statement, he pointed to what he sees as excessive regulations governing the business environment.
“We have over-regulated every section of the business world. It is more expensive now to be in business and is almost impossible depending on what business you are interested in.”
While there are all of these regulations for the establishment of businesses, he further stated, there are not enough in place to protect these businesses.
“You have no laws protecting you from the abuse of your financial institution, the insurance institution,” he stated.
According to Hon. Fahie, “You have to find out, how can we streamline some of these regulations. And I’m not saying that you want things to happen without being accountable, but streamline some of them so that our people and investors would want to do business in the Virgin Islands.”
Meanwhile, he lamented the burdensome taxes facing businesses, especially in a recovery period.
“You have every living tax known to man placed on our people,” he posited.
So, along with the relaxing of regulations, the Opposition Leader called for tax breaks for businesses, saying, “When you have that…that is going to call for some breaks because trying to enforce all these taxes on persons that are not making money will result in the same results you are getting…people are not paying them. And if people are not paying these taxes, then after a while they have to start to lay off people, so we have to start to open up our economy, allow certain things to come in.”
