Considering where most fishermen live and vote, it seems expedient to make a good show of flapping about helping them, while they’re dropping GST nets all around us.
Now with offshore fishing licences risking our stocks, they’ve been trolling about a processing factory – and, most recently, promising wood on the wharf, when water, gas and diesel are the economic planks missing far too long.
Island Harbour fishers are too smart for that bait – and too polite to laugh out loud during recent “zero rated” presentations.
Setting the Nets: Promising Escape after Trapping Everyone Else
Still, this government seem to think they can treat our fishermen like a school of jacks. The lures to escape their nets offer “zero rated… goods imported or supplied for the purpose of fishing (or farming) as provided for in Schedule 1, Table 2.” Sounds pretty good.
“Zero rated” Feathers: Exempt is not exempt.
In fact, listing “fishing inputs” gloriously “zero rated” to escape GST conveniently ignores Customs regulations that were not repealed when Interim Goods Tax (IGT) was replaced by GST. They all attract 1% Customs service fees, and five add 1% Excise tax. Fish pot wire and anchors attract 10% duty, with navigation sextants at 15% plus fees, totalling 11 and 16%. Others include distress flares, GPS and satellite radar systems that attract 20% duty plus fees, or 21%. Regardless of glittery exemptions from GST, exempt is not exempt.
So, why did they set the GST net to trap the whole economy in ridiculous regulations – and then start all this confusion to wiggle out of them? Maybe GST is the Great Stupid Tax, if the truth be told…?
“Zero rated” feathers on the GST hooks also don’t cover basics like outboard motors and parts – or protective marine paints. Beyond those fees, will GST at 13% replace 5% IGT at the port? And the most pivotal categories of: marine bearings, clutches, shafts, gears, torque converters, flywheels, transmission parts, and propellers all attract 20% duty, plus fees; and now, GST, weighing in at up to 34%! All of these are excluded from those shiny exclusions.
Closing the Circle: Forced Registration, Same Wasted Time
It turns out, none of the “zero rated” imports are exempt from GST. That is, unless one registers as a “taxable person” and applies for small fry “zero rated” exemptions.
Days of precious fishing time are still wasted clearing goods at zero or any rate, because “zero rated” for GST is not zero at Customs. Even if approved, “documentary proof as is ‘acceptable’ to the Comptroller” is required, in addition to: endless entries, submitting to security checks, waiting, goods retrieval and inspection, invoice and documentation review, payment, waiting, receipts, and only then, release of goods and return of personal identification credentials, to finally exit that crippling drag on their business – and everyone else’s.
Surrendering to registration is a trawling torment. Must a “taxable person” registered for pot-fish refunds from “zero rated” goods comply with record keeping and tax invoicing if selling “exempt” fish to registered recipients? Or submit monthly reporting if importing “zero” goods just once or twice a year?
They catch fishermen both ways: Force them to pay GST now and then, or register into their net, swimming in circles serving civil servants – instead of chefs serving restaurant patrons.
Sharks at the Shore: GST Can Attack at Any Time!
Beyond business losses, the sparkling turbulence around registering fishermen attracts predatory penalties and the risk of being swallowed whole.
From $500 a day for late “zero rated” paperwork, no matter if they imported anything, or not – what if weeks of rough waters break on the due date, stealing the only safe day to head out in a month? Or if the Comptroller chooses a day of smooth seas to demand they “give evidence under oath” about theirs or their customers’ taxes? Or hooks them with assessments for “zero” goods but lost paperwork, requiring 50% merely to object? Or gets an order to block their travel for a disputed amount – and they need to go help a sick relative far away?
As such, registration could batter fishermen like breakers, missing calls in and out of range, far offshore, without so much as a radio tower to ensure they get home. Those fines and prison terms swim without rest. Must they also display a certificate? And where to put one? The bow? Taped to the truck window used to deliver the catch? Or on the freezer at home?
Meanwhile, the ultimate whale shark poised to swallow them whole is hiding in plain sight in the GST regulations: it’s the exemption of “Fish (locally produced)”. It’s the same whale shark that’s been eating us all, growing four times bigger in recent administrations: The GST Act allows any government to go to the House and demand GST on all fish, at any time, only to feed themselves!
55 Years of Clear Sailing – Before GST Tangled the Nets!
Throughout Anguillian history, our fishermen, and a growing cadre of world class chefs, sailed into sparkling, clear waters of culinary awards. Their patrons have savoured the freshest, most delectable fare from the lines, nets, and traps of arguably the most talented artisan fishers in the hemisphere. Nothing hampered those transactions. Not a single regulation tangled their nets.
Their bliss began with the zing of the reels and whirring of the winch, a phone call, a speck at the horizon, bobbing up to tie onto the wharf, maybe a scale, and a wave and a rush. Being the first chef to arrive with cash, that joy lit up a smile, all the way to the pan, grill and plate! Generous gratuities and glowing reviews shaped our standing for unsurpassed Caribbean cuisine.
And now, rounded up into flickering cultural and economic shadows, GST has encircled our most free and courageous souls. Ensnaring the future of our restaurant reputation, GST threatens to drown generations of thrilling, spontaneous commerce that has defined a vibrant fishing community – and the spectacular fare it can bring to our shores and our tables.
Repeal GST. Now.
This article reflects societal and economic issues raised on July 5, 2021, by Ms. Melinda Goddard, Principal of ClienTell Consulting, to the House of Assembly Select Committee on (GST) Goods and Service Tax Public Hearing. References: Customs Act, (R.S.A. C. C169), Integrated Customs Tariff (Amendment) Regulations, 2019 (1 August 2019; 549 pps.); Goods and Services Tax Act, 2021 (Act No. 18/2021) and Regulations, 2022; 26 pps.
