Chairman of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation (BCCEC), Timothy Ingraham is calling for tax relief and simplification ahead of the delivery of the 2024-2025 budget communication set for Wednesday, May 29th.

Ingraham recently shared some of the concerns of the business community with reporters. He said, “we would like to see the tax code even simplified a bit. We think in recent years some things that have made it a little more difficult for businesses to report. If you’re the government you want to make it as easy as possible for people to pay you taxes, you don’t want to make it difficult. We also want to see ease of doing business. A lot of members report that when they need a letter of good standing, for instance, from the Registrar General’s Office that’s a very tedious process. We’ve seen some issues there at that office recently so hopefully there’s something in the budget to move that process forward so that our members aren’t held up by what’s happening there.”

The Chamber President also commented on the projected 2.5% in economic growth. “The studies have shown that higher economic growth unlocks a lot of very positive benefits. Things like lower unemployment levels, you have more jobs for people, there’s more money circulating in the economy. So if we can push past that a bit that would, I think, benefit the country tremendously. And there’s certain things that we need to do structurally. For instance in our education system studies have shown that the more of your population that leaves school with a high schools diploma the more economic growth you’re able to unlock. I mean it can almost double your economic growth if you make sure 50% of your high school graduates have a high school diploma and not just a leaving certificate,” Ingraham said.

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