The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB) has highlighted the need for the country’s tax administration system to improve.
ICAB chief executive officer Lisa Padmore flagged the issue while participating in the Post-Budget Discussion Forum hosted by the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and PricewaterhouseCoopers at Hilton Barbados Resort.
In an immediate response, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for Economic Affairs and Planning Marsha Caddle acknowledged the challenges, which she linked to issues with digital platforms, and committed to providing improvements.
Padmore said last year was a difficult one for ICAB’s members in their ability to service the business community.
“I don’t have to tell this to the members of ICAB, but for those of you who hired them, last year was a pretty bad year for them in terms of servicing you because of the challenges we had with our tax administration system,” she said.
“And we still continue to because March 16 was the day that we should have filed [financial] year-ends that were January to September, but we only got access to that tax return on March 16.”
On March 16, the Barbados Revenue Authority advised that the corporation tax return for income year 2025 was now available in TAMIS.
It said that “to ensure taxpayers have adequate time to file, companies with fiscal year-ends between January 1 and September 30 have been granted an extension”.
The payment deadline is March 27 and the filing deadline is April 15.
Padmore said that “the certainty of process, the certainty of the platforms, is really and truly where I think is our bug bear, and we really need to get an handle on it because, as we then extend that conversation, it is all about doing business in Barbados by Barbadians and people coming to Barbados”.
“They want to have tax certainty. They want to have a certainty process,” she noted.
Caddle, who, like Padmore, participated in the Budget-related panel discussion, acknowledged that “the tax administration system and the TAMIS platform have a lot of scope for improvement”.
“I think this is something that Minister [of Finance Ryan] Straughn squarely acknowledges. He and I spoke about this . . . and there are planned reforms,” she reported.
“I think that right now there is a hold in order to get through where we are now, because we don’t want to go tinkering with something that we are in the middle of.
“But I’ve seen the systems and the plans for upgrading, and I have encouraged him and the BRA to have ongoing consultation to make sure that the changes that are planned actually respond to the difficulties.”
Caddled attributed most of the efficiency challenges to “the quality of some of the platforms that we use, making sure that the digital products are well specified, that they are not simply out of the box, but that they respond to the particular realities of our users”.
The post ICAB: Tax administration system a challenge appeared first on nationnews.com.