Fee payment systems to be streamlined, VAT deadlines unchanged

Wed, Nov 19th 2014, 12:16 PM

Financial Secretary John Rolle said yesterday that the government will work to "streamline" the Ministry of Finance's business license payment process as the deadline for value-added tax (VAT) registration approaches.
Speaking with Guardian Business, Rolle addressed the matter of business license and national insurance fees, which must be current to register for VAT, stating that the ministry is primed to process a surge of businesses in the next two weeks.
"The system could use some work in terms of getting [applicants] through it more swiftly, but we're going to look at it. We're going to go back and review the process as we receive feedback, to see what additional refinement can take place to get people through [registration] quickly. I know that National Insurance is aware that it will be seeing increased traffic from persons who are trying to get their business licenses up to date," said Rolle.
The VAT Private Sector Education Task Force noted earlier this week that many VAT registrants had been stalled in their registration attempts by having their business license and national insurance fees out of order.
The task force also voiced its concern over continued procrastination from some corners of the private sector in getting all relevant fees current, and called attention to the potential fines and prison time resulting from late registration.
Rolle remained firm that all business license and national insurance fees need to be up-to-date prior to VAT registration in spite of the delays that the policy has caused the registration process.
"We would be facing a serious dilemma if we tried to use VAT registration in any way to legitimize any business that is not licensed. We don't want a willingness to regularize one's business license to be slowed down in any way. We will make this process more and more streamlined so that they can have their applications processed as quickly as possible," he said.
Although it is unclear when the government plans to revamp the process, it is clear that many local businesses remain either ignorant of the business license policy in relation to VAT registration, or continue to procrastinate.
Still, Rolle stressed that the government will accommodate all businesses in their regularization process.
"The bottom line is that businesses are now working to become properly regularized because of the business license requirements and we're going to see that they're able to accomplish that. We will not frustrate that process," Rolle said.

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