...we examine the experience of Barbados in its transition to value added tax (VAT) ...and look at how we can apply those lessons to The Bahamas ...Finally, we present an argument for why the tax discussion should ultimately be extended to include modest corporate taxes

Value added tax, part 2

CFAL Economic View

Nassau, The Bahamas

Last week we examined the need for a new tax system in The Bahamas and gave an example of how value added tax, or VAT, would be calculated in practice. In this article we examine the experience of Barbados in its transition to VAT and look at how we can apply those lessons to The Bahamas. Finally, we present an argument for why the tax discussion should ultimately be extended to include modest corporate taxes.

In an excellent article recently published in The Tribune titled “Barbados’s Lessons for The Bahamas over VAT”, Dr. Nikolaos Karagiannis of Winston-Salem State University presented a detailed overview of the process that took our southern Caribbean neighbor to its new tax system.

VAT was introduced in Barbados at the beginning of 1997 at a standard rate of 15 percent (it has since been raised to 17.5 percent). Among the reasons cited for its choosing to implement VAT was to reduce the complexity of the country’s indirect tax system and to reduce the high level of duties and taxes on imported goods.

Serious discussions on tax reform began in earnest when Barbados underwent stabilization and structural adjustment under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1991. In order to coordinate the extensive work of implementing a VAT, Barbados established a VAT Implementation Unit (VIU) in 1993. In January 1994, it entered a technical cooperation agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Under the agreement, loans were allocated for the design of the VAT system and to bolster the Customs and Excise Department.

When the Owen Arthur administration came to office in 1994, the implementation of VAT was postponed to mid-1996 while research continued on estimating the impact of the tax on revenues, prices and the productive sectors.

The VIU started public relations outreach programs in May 1995, including the release of pamphlets and booklets, targeting four main target audiences: the private sector (retailers, manufacturers, importers and managers); the government sector agencies involved in the administration of the system; members of the general public (consumers) and finally the school system. The VIU presented at workshops, seminars, as well as via television and radio to further educate the public and business community. The major features of the new act were passed by the Barbados House of Assembly in September 1996 with effect on January 1, 1997.

The Bahamian context

Will Bahamians comply with a new and seemingly complicated tax? Many are skeptical that we can effectively get companies and individuals to forward the correct amount of tax to the government when we struggle to collect existing property taxes. As reported numerous times before, our government is owed some $400 million in past due property taxes according to the auditor general; much of that amount will probably never be recovered.

However, the reality may prove to be less problematic: only persons/businesses of the size and capability to adhere to good record-keeping (as measured by annual gross sales) will be included in the VAT system. Around the Caribbean region, this minimum threshold is TT$200,000 in Trinidad and Tobago (approx. US$30,000), JM$144,000 in Jamaica (approx. US$2,000) and BD$80,000 in Barbados (US$40,000). Given the higher average per capital GDP of The Bahamas, one can reasonably anticipate that our exemption threshold will be much higher than the rest of the Caribbean.

The Barbadian government was equally concerned with tax avoidance and evasion. Only those traders who were registered, and who displayed a certificate of registration, were legally authorized to charge VAT on the taxable goods and services they were selling. On the other hand, those traders who were not registered were paying VAT on the goods they were buying, but were not legally authorized to charge VAT on the goods they were selling, thereby squeezing their profits.

No doubt Bahamian business culture will need to be transformed. Compared to Barbados, which already had a strong tax framework and a history of paying taxes, this nation is starting from the opposite spectrum in terms of tax familiarity and compliance. The principle challenge for the business community will be record keeping; many companies will need to hire book-keepers or accountants while upgrading their point of sales or POS systems. Ultimately we will need to force compliance by tying it to the renewal of business licenses, alongside rigorous and impartial execution of the law by the newly created tax authority.

The move forward

As the Bahamian economy is a predominantly services-driven one, the real challenge for our policymakers is to introduce a VAT system that can achieve economic, fiscal, social and developmental objectives, while avoiding any adverse effects on tourism and financial services. As one example, VAT in Barbados was applied at a concessionary rate of 7.5 percent (now 8.75 percent) on accommodation in hotels, inns and guest houses. The government will need to decide very carefully which goods and services would be zero-rated and therefore exempted to make sure that VAT is neither regressive, nor penalizing those who are at the lowest levels of income.

Beyond VAT, how do we get the greatest mileage out of the many tax information exchange agreements, or TIEAs, that our jurisdiction has signed? One of the stated goals of the Bahamian financial services industry is to see companies locate their head and subsidiary offices within our shores.

Would that be an easier sell if we had a tax regime that allowed foreign companies to offset taxes paid in our jurisdiction when repatriating income? For example, Barbados has a number of double taxation agreements, or DTAs, that are extremely favorable for certain types of investors. These agreements promote cross border trade, avoid double taxation and prevent tax evasion.

As a result of its 2000 DTA treaty with China, Barbados has emerged as the leading jurisdiction for offshore wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE) holding companies in China. Under existing law, payments of dividends by a WFOE to its foreign owners are free of Chinese withholding tax. Payments of interest to foreign lenders are subject to withholding at 20 percent, typically reduced to 10 percent under applicable tax treaties. However, where a taxpayer qualifies for benefits under the Barbados-China treaty, the tax rates are reduced to five percent for dividends and 10 percent for interest.

The Bahamas should be able to compete in this space with the proper tax structure. The current tax debate is an ideal time to examine the merits of corporate tax as a boost to our competitive advantage in an era where being a zero-tax country is now a liability. This would allow the Bahamas to obtain tax income from foreign companies operating here at modest rates of 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent without increasing their overall tax burden since, by the DTA, the tax would be shared by our treasury and that of the home country.

Even as we move to a new tax system, we stress that the government will still need to be vigilant in controlling its spending and getting its fiscal house in order. This is one reason why the so-called Tea Party in the United States is so adamantly against any form of tax increases, including any overhaul of the tax code which increases efficiency and as a consequence increases collection. Instead, it feels the need to “starve the beast”, as governments’ natural inclination is to spend more than whatever revenue it takes in.

Referring to Barbados one last time, that country has a 17.5 percent VAT, 20 percent to 35 percent personal income taxes, 12.5 percent withholding on income and dividends, 15 percent to 25 percent local corporate taxes and import taxes on vehicles, spirits, tobacco and petroleum products. Nevertheless, they still had a 2010/2011 central government deficit of 8.5 percent of GDP and total government debt over 110 percent of GDP. Clearly, getting the tax policy right is still only one side of the government’s fiscal equation.

CFAL is a sister company of The Nassau Guardian under the AF Holdings Ltd. umbrella. CFAL provides investment management, research, brokerage and pension services. For comments, please contact CFAL at: column@cfal.com

Jul 11, 2012

Value added tax, part 1

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to Hugo Chavez: "Your Victory Will be our Victory"

Lula to Chavez: "Your Victory Will be our Victory"


By AVN:

Below is the complete message that Brazilian leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, sent to the Sao Paulo Forum in Caracas.

Comrades,

In 1990, when we created the Sao Paulo Forum, none of us thought that in just two decades we would get to be where we are now. At that time, the Left was governing only in Cuba. Today, we govern a large number of countries and even where we are in opposition, parties belonging the Forum are gaining an increasing influence in political and social life.

Progressive governments are changing the face of Latin America. Thanks to them, our continent is developing rapidly, with economic growth, job creation, distribution of wealth and social inclusion. Today, we are an international reference point for a successful alternative to neoliberalism.

Of course, we still have more work to do. Events which have taken place, in Honduras and Paraguay for instance, show why we have to keep struggling, so that democracy prevails in our region. The existence of colonies in our continent, as in the case of the Malvinas, which evidently belong to Argentina, remind us how much we have to fight to maintain national and regional sovereignty and for that we require more Latin American and Caribbean integration.

Our countries are still marked by poverty and inequality. We require more economic growth, social policies and structural reforms to build the developed, fair and fraternal society we long for. In everything that we have done up until now, which is a lot, the Forum and parties of the Forum have played a significant role, which could be even more important if we maintain our main characteristic: unity in the face of adversity.

I would like to say good bye adding that I would really like to be there. Not only to be part of the delegation, the Workers' Party delegation, but also to give a warm embrace to comrade Hugo Chavez. With Chavez's leadership, the venezuelan people has made extraordinary gains. The popular classes have never ever been treated with such respect, love and dignity. Those conquests must be preserved and strengthened.

Chavez, count on me, count on the PT (Brazilian Workers' Party), count on the solidarity and support of each left-wing militant, each democrat and each Latin American. Your victory will be ours. A strong embrace, a fraternal embrace and thanks comrade for everything you have done for Latin America.

Source: AVN

July 09, 2012

Venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International

Sam Haven - a senior Bahamian banker has questioned whether complying with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) could breach The Bahamas' financial services laws ...and expressed concerns that institutions could be “caught between a rock and a hard place”

Senior Banker Queries If Fatca 'Breaches The Law'

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A senior Bahamian banker has questioned whether complying with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) could breach this nation’s financial services laws, and expressed concerns that institutions could be “caught between a rock and a hard place”.

Sam Haven, a private banker for more than 40 years, suggested that the Government and financial services regulators needed to become more involved in determining how best the Bahamas meet FATCA’s demands, and whether any changes to this nation’s laws were necessary.

Emphasising that he was not speaking for his employer, Scotiabank (Bahamas), and that his personal views were not those of the bank, Mr Haven said FATCA was set to impose “lots of duress” on jurisdictions such as the Bahamas.

Outlining his main concern, he told Tribune Business that the US legislation, which seeks to make Bahamian financial services institutions and providers ‘tax agents’ of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), seemed to require them to breach client confidentiality provisions enshrined in laws such as the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act.

“Would complying with the provisions of FATCA put us in breach of confidentiality laws as set out in the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act,” Mr Haven questioned.

“I think we’re missing the boat on a number of things here. There are views I personally have on this, and that is that the regulators need to give comments and instructions to financial services companies.

“At present, under the requirements of this Act, anyone complying with it would be in breach of the laws of the Bahamas.”

Mr Haven said that while Bahamian law did permit the disclosure of client information in 
“certain circumstances”, usually via the court process, FATCA required the “automatic” provision of such details to the IRS.

Given the implications for Bahamian financial services providers, Mr Haven said both the Attorney General’s Office and regulators, such as the Central Bank of the Bahamas, needed to become more involved in determining how this nation responded.

“What FATCA attempts to do is make all financial institutions reporting agents of the IRS,” Mr Haven told Tribune Business.

“The important thing for us is to have the regulators and government enter into the negotiations to decide how best to implement this, and make sure changes are made to our laws to accommodate this if we decide this is the way we want to go......

“Certainly, the Government and legislators now need to step forward. The Central Banks needs to propose some guidelines for the Government was to whether we change the laws to facilitate this, otherwise institutions will be caught between a rock and a hard place.

“I’m not sure what the solution is at this point, but there are persons in position to steer it and give guidance on how it should be done.

“The fact is we’re getting a lot closer, and nothing seems to be happening. FATCA is saying you automatically release the information, which creates issues for institutions, as they are potentially breaching the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act and client confidentiality.”

Bahamian and other global financial services providers are required to reach Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) agreements with the IRS by July 1, 2013, next year for the purpose of supplying them with details on all their US clients. Otherwise, these clients will be subject to a 30 per cent withholding penalty on all US-sourced income.

Mr Haven said several Bahamian financial services firms had been talking about the action/systems they were implementing to meet FATCA’s requirements, but this was all based on what the IRS was demanding.

He warned that should the Government enter the process and make changes, these firms might “need to start over again”, with all the time and extra expense that would incur.

“The Bahamas, for a long time, has held its head high as a major player, not only in financial services but in implementing and enforcing standards around the world, such as Know Your Customer (KYC),” Mr Haven said.

FATCA, though, went further than any previous international or extra-territorial initiatives, and “creates a situation involving a lot of duress for jurisdictions like ourselves.

“The cost of implementing what they’re proposing is going to be exorbitant and enormous,” Mr Haven added.

FATCA seeks information on anyone who has even the slightest US nexus, connection, and holds bank accounts outside the US. This means that Bahamians who hold dual US citizenship or are green card holders will have to be reported to the IRS.

This is one of the major challenges for Bahamas-based financial institutions, especially the commercial banks. They will now have to drill down into all existing clients and investment structures to determine whether there is any US ownership that needs to be reported. And the information sought from new clients on account opening forms will also have to be changed to determine any US connection.

Mr Haven told Tribune Business that the US “power and might” would be virtually impossible to resist, especially given the need for all banks to access the US financial and capital markets systems.

Then there were the correspondent banking relationships that have to be maintained with US institutions, especially for dealing in US dollars, along with associated clearing and settlement.

Mr Haven said it was unclear how correspondent banking relationships would be impacted if FFI agreements were not reached by the IRS deadline.

While FATCA potentially placed “a very serious burden” on the Bahamian financial services industry, he added that it was “not necessarily as onerous as you think”, given that the sector had already done much work on KYC and due diligence when it came to new accounts.

July 09, 2012

Tribune242 

Bahamas Blog International

Life Without God: Non-Believers in Post-Soviet Russia

By Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti:

A bus full of people, covered in inscriptions in Russian such as “You don’t believe in God? You’re not alone!” romps across Moscow streets.

The bus is a shabby flash animation on the Web site Atheists.org.ru. It is the only Russian incarnation of the international Atheist Bus Campaign, launched in Britain in 2009 in response to a similar campaign promoting faith.

All attempts to stage a similar offline drive in Russia have fallen through, said Artem Jouravsky, the head of the atheism and secularism Good Sense Foundation lobby group.

“We wanted to do our street billboards saying, ‘There is no God,’ in response to billboards with religious propaganda in Russia in 2009, but it turned out to be impossible,” he said. “This prompted us to create our foundation.”

Atheists are sorely underrepresented in Russian public space, despite comprising about 13 percent of the population, or a solid 18 million people, the latest polls show.

Atheism spokespeople blame their lack of media exposure on the dominance of the Orthodox Christian Church, one of the biggest national institutions whose many hierarchs are putting every effort into turning its teachings into the country's dominant ideology, a role fulfilled by atheism in the Soviet times.

“It’s plain scary to be an atheist now. I know cases where people were sacked for this from police and the army by former Communist Party bosses, no less,” said atheism champion Alexander Nevzorov.

But religion analysts say the situation is rather due to Orthodox Christianity becoming a staple of the post-Soviet Russian national identity, if only for a lack of alternatives.

“Something needs to unite the people and society into a nation,” said Sergei Filatov, an expert on religion with the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “For us, it is currently World War II and Orthodox Christianity. We have no other big ideas to be supported by the populace at large.”

However, atheists comprise a significant part of the Russian society, and the church’s increasing involvement in political and societal affairs is creating a backlash that will only give them more adherents and public representation, experts and non-believers say.

“We’re just late in deploying our forces for the battle, like the Soviet Union in 1941,” said Jouravsky. “Give us another year or two.”

The Invisible People

There are at least a dozen atheist rights groups in Russia such as the Good Sense Foundation, which is a member of the Atheist Alliance International, Jouravsky said.

He avoided saying how many members his own group has, noting only that it limits its activity to Moscow and the surrounding region. The foundation’s Facebook page has earned a modest 800 “likes.”

Most atheist groups are unknown to the general public, while their most renowned spokesman, Alexander Nevzorov, is a controversial star of perestroika-era shock journalism who has not had his own TV show since 1999. Church spokespeople, such as the heads of the Moscow Patriarchate departments Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin and Vladimir Legoida, make headlines on a weekly basis.

This is a distinct imbalance between population and representation, given that the most recent survey of Russians’ relations with the divine, by pollster Sreda in the spring of 2011, showed that 13 percent of the populace did not believe in God.

Another five percent were undecided, possibly – but not necessarily – marking them as agnostics, according to the poll, which covered 1,500 respondents and had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.

The poll showed the number Orthodox Christian Church followers as 42 percent, with the rest divided between various other traditional religions and a belief in some divine being without following a particular faith.

“Atheism is now invisible, like Christianity used to be in Soviet times,” said religion expert Filatov.

Swinging Back and Forth

When Russian Navy Officer Alexander Voznitsyn abandoned Orthodox Christianity for Judaism in 1738, the Senate ordered him burned at the stake along with the Jew who converted him.

Christianity was the dominant religion in Russia for almost a millennium, with its status protected by criminal legislation in tsarist times, when apostasy was a felony and being irreligious was forbidden.

But when the old order was brought down by the Bolsheviks in 1917, the church went down with it.

“The poor peasants and the working class brought down the crosses in the 1920s,” said Sergei Solovyov, editor in chief of the Scepsis, a self-described online “magazine of science and social criticism” that promotes anti-clericalism.

The church was too firmly associated with the tsarist state, which was too obsolete and retrograde, hampering social progress with its old ways inherited from feudal times, some historians say. The Bolsheviks, for whom religion was an ideological enemy, did their best to foment widespread negative sentiment toward the church, both through promises of a new, better, godless society and relentless repressions of the clergy.

Next came the time of militant atheism. Though religious worship was not banned outright in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s, believers became pariahs in the eyes of both society and the state, which had arguably the world’s fiercest repression machine at its disposal and was not afraid to use it against priests and their flock, thousands of whom were jailed or executed.

It took the greatest war in history to turn things around. In 1943, when the Nazi Wehrmacht and the Red Army were still locked in a deadly fight and thousands of churches were opened by the Germans on occupied territories to the population’s liking, Josef Stalin allowed reopening the churches for service, spelling the end of active anti-church repression.

After another crackdown under Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the surviving churches were allowed to operate under strict government control, but being an open believer would ruin one’s career as surely as dissident thinking would.

The unexpected consequence was that religion itself became associated with protesting against the oppressive and increasingly rotten Soviet bureaucratic machine. It came into vogue for the intelligentsia to keep Orthodox icons at home, and some of the dissidents, such as Gleb Yakunin, were priests.

The next turning point came during perestroika. When the Soviet state actively promoted the celebration of the millennium anniversary of the baptism of Russia in 1988, it was a clear sign that things have changed again, and the pendulum was swinging back toward the religious quarters.

In 1991, 24 percent of Russians identified themselves as believers; in 2005, the figure stood at 53 percent, with a further 24 percent registering as “not sure,” according to in-depth research into new Russian religiosity by Kimmo Kaariainen of the University of Helsinki and Dmitry Furman of the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences, published in 2007.

Corporation Church

There is an old building on Leningradsky Prospekt in northern Moscow, an almshouse in Tsarist times and part of a state hospital under the Bolsheviks, which is now being leased to various commercial establishments, including a plastic surgery clinic.

The building belongs to the church, which won it back in 2002 as property unlawfully confiscated after the Revolution, said Solovyov of Scepsis magazine.

Creeping clericalism is the main complaint of the Russian atheists, who say the state relies on the church for ideological support and lavishly rewards it with money and assets to the delight of many priests, who are more concerned with earthly riches than with heavenly salvation.

“The Russian Orthodox Church is part of the state’s ideological apparatus,” Solovyov said. “No wonder the authorities dislike criticism of the church.”

The alliance of the church and the state has indeed been a hot topic in recent years. Both President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stress their religiousness, attending important church services in front of the cameras. There is hardly a single atheist politician on the political scene, including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.

The list of atheists’ grievances includes the introduction of taxpayer-funded chaplains in the army, the city-backed program to build 200 (previously 600) churches in Moscow’s suburban districts and a new subject that would allow teaching religion basics in schools, though only at the student’s discretion.

In 2010, the Kremlin authorized a sweeping restitution program that has seen the government return real estate confiscated by the Bolsheviks to various confessions, even though the buildings now often house secular establishments, including hospitals and museums, such as the one on Leningradsky Prospekt. Commercial real estate once owned by the church is not part of the program.

The current church is among the country’s richest non-governmental organizations, with assets in real estate, banks, factories, publishing companies and funeral services firms, according to research by the Openspace.ru online magazine, which estimated total church assets at above $1 billion in 2011. The church itself is notoriously opaque about its business activities, and while it often denies allegations of financial misconduct, it rarely provides credible information on its economic record.

The Kremlin’s benevolence was not for nothing. During the presidential election this year, the church leader, Patriarch Kirill, endorsed Vladimir Putin’s candidacy while urging the flock against attending the anti-Putin rallies that swept across Moscow.

Atheists also complain of a media ban. “In federal media, criticizing the church was taboo until recently,” said Solovyov. “They were either not interested or afraid of being accused of insulting believers’ feelings.”

Nevzorov said some atheists have lost their jobs over their convictions, but refused to name anyone, saying this could land the allegedly aggrieved in more trouble.

However, the situation may not be as straightforward as church critics describe it. Nevzorov himself admitted in a recent interview to the Russian edition of Rolling Stone magazine that he was asked to spearhead the atheist effort by a lobby group in the Kremlin, campaigning for secularism on ideological grounds.

He revealed no names and said that the group is being overpowered for the time being by its opponents, who see religion as a useful tool for population control, but that the balance of power could shift in the unspecified but near future.

“I was asked to spend some time in this foxhole with the promise that the Red Army is on the way,” Nevzorov said about his championing of atheism in a separate interview in March. But, as he told Rolling Stone in June, “[the Red Army] will probably not come.”

In Soviet Russia, God Doesn’t Believe in You

“Real atheists are so rare, I’ve been saying for a long time that they should be put on the list of endangered species,” said Archdeacon Andrei Kurayev, a popular Orthodox Christian media figure.

“At the same time, atheism does not necessarily imply fighting God. I have deep respect for some forms of atheism, such as Sartre’s or Camus’s,” said Kurayev, a prominent Christian missionary whose first academic degree is in “scientific atheism.”

He dismissed atheists’ claims of persecution, saying they were just a means of attracting slipping public attention.

“Atheism has no state or media backing – and neither does the church,” Kurayev said.

This position is echoed by religion expert Roman Lunkin, who, however, conceded that some issues do exist.

“There is no direct censorship of atheists, but we can speak of certain ideological pressure, especially on state-owned television channels,” said Lunkin, who works at the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Federal television is turning Orthodox Christianity into some sort of a sacral symbol,” he said.

But Kurayev said this is not the reason for the lack of atheist presence in media. “Some topics just lose immediacy and go away,” Kurayev said. “Arguing with atheism is not relevant anymore. Such people have nothing to say beside criticism.”

He admitted the modern church is riddled with problems, but said believers are better equipped to expose them and actively fight them.

“I can criticize church life too. I’m inside it, and I see more shit than anyone on the outside looking in,” Kurayev said without elaborating.

Expecting a Backlash

On February 21, 2012, churchgoers and tourists in Christ the Savior Cathedral were treated to a sight they hardly expected in one of the country's prime Christian temples: five apparent females in tacky dresses, leggings and balaclavas shouted a song in the altar zone, asking the Mother of God to banish Putin.

Dumbfounded guards were too shocked to detain any of the young women, who scattered away after 41 seconds by the altar, police established later.

However, three of the performers are now in jail, awaiting a trial that threatens to land them behind bars for up to seven years.

This was the first in a series of scandals that rocked the church this year and damaged its reputation, especially among the educated urban population. In the case of Pussy Riot, the name of the female group, it was not the event itself – but rather the church's endorsement of the jail term for the performers – that many critics deem harsh to the point of being repressive.

In March, the media reported about a relative of Patriarch Kirill living in his posh penthouse outside the Kremlin, trying to take over the neighboring apartment of a former federal minister-turned-priest in a lawsuit.  The story of a church hierarch owning a downtown penthouse generated a storm in the blogosphere, as did the lawsuit's questioned pretexts.

Kirill was also spotted wearing an expensive wristwatch, which was clumsily edited out of a photograph of him on the Moscow Patriarchate’s Web site.

Most analysts saw the string of scandals as the well-off, liberal-minded urbanites’ reaction to the church’s increased presence in social life and support for the government.

Before the elections, even non-believers saw the church as a moral authority standing above everyday political squabbles, but throwing its weight behind Putin has robbed it of its image of infallibility in the eyes of the opposition-minded public, Lunkin said.

The church was the most trusted institution in the country in 2011, with a support rating of 60 percent, beating the army with 58 percent and the government with 46 percent, according to a study by the GfK Verein pollster.

But between 30 and 38 percent of people who attended mass anti-Putin rallies in Moscow in February and March were non-believers, according to a Sreda poll.

The number of protesters associating themselves with the Orthodox Christian Church fell from 28 to 19 percent over the same period, after Patriarch Kirill said that believers should not go to political rallies, the Sreda poll said.

The negative feelings part of the populace has toward the church over its marred image and loyalty to the Kremlin have yet to be reflected in future polls, said Lunkin.

They Will Return

Atheism never was a free choice for the Russian populace, as it was imposed as part of Marxist-Leninist ideology, said religion expert Filatov.

But neither was Christianity, which was also imposed by the country’s rulers and upheld by draconian laws, said atheism defender Nevzorov.

“This is Russia’s tragedy: for a thousand years, the people never had freedom of conscience,” Nevzorov said.

As the church mounts its ideological pressure on society, criticism will mount and more people will embrace atheism as the main available alternative to religion, said Lunkin, who also works for the Sreda pollster.

“They think they came to stay,” said Solovyov of Scepsis magazine. “They’re repeating all of their mistakes, imposing their ideology. People will grow disgusted of it, and it will be another cycle [of destruction], same as during the revolution,” he said.

But some predict a milder outcome. “In modern Italy the two main ideologies are Catholicism and atheism, and they coexist peacefully,” analyst Filatov pointed out.

For this, however, Russia needs to drift closer to Europe, embracing secularity voluntarily and without being coerced into it by the government, like in the Soviet times, he said.

“When our recent past – say, 20 years or so – will look like Europe’s, we’ll have a secular conscience coexisting with a religious one,” Filatov said.

21:00 26/06/2012

Rian.ru

Bahamas Blog International

The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test carries the hope that it can help identify some of the nearly quarter-million Americans infected by HIV who don't know it... ...These unknowingly infected people are one reason there are something like 50,000 new HIV infections a year in the USA

New Home Test For HIV May Cut Down New Infections

By Richard Knox:



No infectious disease has ever been detectable by a test that consumers can buy over the counter and get quick results at home. But HIV isn't just any infection. It's a stubborn pandemic virus that's still making people sick and killing them 31 years after it first appeared – even though infection is easily prevented and effectively treated.

The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test carries the hope that it can help identify some of the nearly quarter-million Americans infected by HIV who don't know it.

These unknowingly infected people are one reason there are something like 50,000 new HIV infections a year in this country. HIV testing centers haven't been able to make a dent in this persistent problem, because many of those at risk of HIV infection don't seek out testing.

That might be true of home test kits too, of course. But U.S. health officials hope that privacy, convenience and easy access might induce many people to test themselves at home.

There's already an approved home HIV test kit, but it requires consumers to stick a finger to collect a few drops of blood and then send the sample in to a laboratory and wait for results.

Taking the newly approved test will be simple. Consumers are directed to swab their gums, upper and lower, and put the swab into a vial. Twenty to 40 minutes later, if a single horizontal line appears on the front of the vial, the result is negative. Two lines mean the user may have HIV.

But not necessarily. Interpretion of the test gets a little tricky.

One negative out of 12 is actually a false result – the person may actually be infected by HIV but the test didn't pick it up. A positive result is much less likely to be wrong: Only 1 in 5,000 positives are false. But a positive still requires the user to go to a professional lab for re-testing before jumping to the conclusion that he or she actually has HIV.

And then there's the "window" problem. For the first three to six months after becoming infected with HIV, a person hasn't made enough antibodies to be picked up by the test during that window. So people who get a negative result will be advised to take another test a few months later if they have reason to believe they've been exposed to the virus.

Clearly, consumers who buy the OraQuick test kits may have questions – about the test, about what they should do about a result. So the FDA is requiring OraSure, which makes the test, to set up a 24/7/365 hotline staffed by live humans who can answer questions and refer consumers to health professionals in their zip codes for followup care.

These complications explain the muted enthusiasm among some HIV experts toward the new home test.

Dr. Judith Aberg, chair of the HIV Medicine Association, says in a statement that the test "holds great promise as a self-directed tool for people to learn their HIV status."

But she goes on to say that there needs to be more research and education about how the test is used – especially among low-income and minority populations that are disproportionately affected by HIV. For both those who test positive and those who test negative, proper followup is crucial, she says.

Douglas Michels, president and CEO of OraSure, told Shots that the company takes seriously the need for consumer guidance. And he predicts that the new test will make a difference in slowing the epidemic.

"For every million people who take the test," Michels says, "we'll identify an additional 5,000 new HIV infections. And through that identification, we will be avoiding more than 700 future transmissions of HIV infection."

Michels says the test will be available around October at most pharmacies, retailers such as WalMart and Kroger, and online.

He declined to say how much test kits will cost. But he said it would be in excess of the $17.50 list price of the version currently used in hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices. That's because of more elaborate packaging, education and customer support.

July 03, 2012

NPR.org

Bahamas Blog International

Coups 2.0 in the Americas

By Gonzalo Fernández - ALAI:

Everybody is familiar with the complexity of understanding the alternative processes that are taking place in the Americas, where multiple topics and agendas intersect, in the common will to break with the history of domination and exclusion of the subcontinent. On the one hand, the 21^st century has been accompanied by the arrival of anti-neoliberal governments in various countries, with an unequal record of transformation, but which are the response to the popular majorities being fed up with their reality of poverty, inequality and external dependence. On the other hand, precisely taking advantage of this favorable context, many social movements - and many societies in movement - have raised the need for progress in the implementation of emancipative political agendas, that once and for all get beyond the colonizing and subordination logic to which the region and the population have historically been subjected.

 

So, after a few starts in which institutional and social actors walked hand in hand, tensions between governments and movements have emerged, as well as strained relations between old and new social movements: how slowly or quickly processes of change is taking place; the short life of governments or the long life of emancipation; developmentalism or a determined transition towards good living; the urgent need to overcome the patterns of dependency or the impossibility to do so in such a short period (in historical terms). These are precisely the debates that baffle and enrich the reality of Latin America. The answers to these situations are not simple, nor are they categorical, and deepening reflection on them is one of the great challenges of all the Left, including the European left.

 

However, something that cannot be denied, regardless of where we are positioned, is that all these processes initiated with the new century have torn open gaps, have allowed for spaces of accumulation of forces, spaces for the interconnection of struggles, spaces for the exercise of citizenship rights by large majorities. And nobody can capitalize that, it is part of the action path taken by both governments and movements. The Right knows it well: it attempts to put an end to this new exciting stage by any means. Thus, attacks of the oligarchies and their media - hegemonically aligned with them - do not cease in their effort of discrediting governments and social struggles, with the aim of destabilizing the region and returning to the previous situation of absolute control of the subcontinent. To do so, they are willing to do anything, including coups d'état.

 

This is the key to understanding the coup d'état in Venezuela in 2002 and the coup d'état in Mexico in 2006 - via electoral fraud -. But it is also useful for understanding the coups d’état 2.0 in Honduras (2009) and Ecuador (2010), where new formulas of coup are being tested, seeking for the international community and the population not to assimilate them as such (but with identical results). In this way, instead of the pure and simple military coup, new ways are emerging, ranging from social destabilization generated by the police to the fraudulent use of judicial and even constitutional resources.

 

This new coup scheme 2.0 is still very present in America today. Last week, the President of Paraguay was dismissed on the basis of a political trial, a legal figure of the Constitution which makes it possible to remove a President from office based on a manifest disability to perform his duties. In this sense, a legal staging was orchestrated for an illegitimate and anti-democratic event, where a President elected by popular vote was fulminated in a summary trial in which he only had two hours to exercise his defense, unable to prepare it properly, and against a very serious accusation. The ultimate goal of the coup: that one of the most retrograde oligarchies of the continent could put a stop to the timid processes of change engendered in recent years, and prevent the Left from accumulating enough forces to face the presidential elections in 2013.

 

On the other hand, since the past weekend, all the media of the world echoed the turmoil generated by the police strike in Bolivia - illegal in many countries - and which is perhaps a prelude of further attempts of destabilization in the Andean country. Finally, we'll see what happens in the Mexican elections, where a broad student movement has gained significant momentum against the possibility that the PRI returns to power (with the full support of the Right and large media conglomerates.)

 

We must remain very much on the alert for these new realities, and denounce without palliatives, both here and there, the abuses perpetrated against democracy in the Americas. Regardless of the views we hold about one government or the other, or their greater or lesser commitment to the emancipation of the continent, we must be clear about one thing: we cannot allow what has been achieved in the last decade to be reverted, and we must join forces to prevent anti-democratic regressions, not only because of international solidarity, but also given the importance of the region as a source of inspiration to raise proposals that allow us to envision other paths to overcome this crisis of civilization that affects us all. Our paths are deeply intertwined, their democracy is also ours. 

(Translation FEDAEPS).

 

 

- Gonzalo Fernández is a member of the Internationalist Working Group of Alternatiba, Basque Country.

 

Source: ALAI

 

July 04, 2012

 

Venezuelanalysis 

 

Bahamas Blog International 

...the need for a new tax system in The Bahamas ...Value added tax, or VAT, has emerged as the frontrunner to supplement or completely replace the Bahamian system of customs duties

Value added tax, part 1

By CFAL Economic View

Nassau, The Bahamas

Much has been written in the press recently on the need for a new tax system in The Bahamas.  Value added tax, or VAT, has emerged as the frontrunner to supplement or completely replace our system of customs duties.

In this first of a two-part article, we will examine why we need to change our tax regime in the first place, give an example of how VAT taxes work in practice and describe the basic structures that will be needed by both the government and private sector to make VAT work.

Next week we will highlight Barbados’ experience in moving to a VAT system in the late-1990s and continue with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities of moving to a similar system here in The Bahamas.

Finally, we will review other tax methods that can potentially raise government revenues and increase competitiveness for a key segment of our economy, financial services.

So why all the fuss over taxes?  Quite simply, our government’s spending is outpacing our tax revenue by a greater and greater amount, especially since the recession of 2008.  In other words, we have been running increasingly large government deficits and borrowing the difference.  According to the Central Bank, our deficit has increased from $182m in fiscal year 2006/2007, hitting $361m in 2008/2009 and is now estimated to be over $550m for 2012/2013.

As former Central Bank governor and Minister of State for Finance James Smith remarked in a recent article, this revenue gap now appears “structural” in nature, meaning it will not correct itself on its own through normal reduced spending or increased collection of the existing taxes on the books.

What ultimately is needed is a concerted effort to either cut public spending, raise more revenue or some combination of the two.  Both Moody’s and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have warned that our growing financial deficit at approximately 4.7 percent of GDP is unsustainable.  Central Bank statistics show that government debt has ballooned from $3 billion in 2007, or about 31 percent of GDP, to over $4.3 billion in 2011, or 53 percent of GDP.

Studies have shown that as debt approaches 60 percent of GDP, the need to service that debt and pay the interest begins to slow the growth rate of the economy.  With official unemployment at almost 16 percent and over 40,000 people unemployed, the last thing The Bahamas needs is to have its already anemic growth rate slow even further.

So what is wrong with our current tax system based on customs duties?  Most obviously, it is not providing the government with the revenue it needs to support current expenditure (of course, this could also be framed as a government spending problem – more on this next week).  According to the CIA World Factbook, The Bahamas ranks 167th out of 210 countries in terms of tax revenues paid to the government as a percentage of GDP.

Our government takes in about 19 percent in taxes versus the global average of 29 percent.  By comparison, Jamaica takes 27 percent, Barbados 28 percent, Trinidad & Tobago 34 percent, Canada 39 percent, Brazil 40 percent and most of Europe between 40 percent and 60 percent.  The United States, with the largest economy in the world, takes a tax haul of 15 percent of GDP, highlighting the “fiscal space” it still has to address in contrast to Europe which is looking increasingly “maxed out”.  It is clear that we are lightly-taxed in this country by global standards.

Secondly, by putting most of the tax burden on imports, our tax base is fairly narrow and completely leaves out our dominant service-based economy.  It also requires merchants to pay their taxes upfront, prior to making the final sale to consumers, thereby tying up capital unnecessarily.

Therefore, if we can broaden the tax base we can tax everyone at a lower rate and still provide the government with the revenue it needs to help balance the books and even start paying down its debt.

A final reason for changing our tax system is the fact that The Bahamas has entered into a number of international trade agreements, including the Economic Partnership Agreement, or EPA, with Europe.  Moreover, the current administration continues to work towards full membership for The Bahamas in the World Trade Organization, or WTO.  Our high rates of duties will most likely be viewed as a barrier to trade by these bodies, forcing us to either reduce them or eliminate those tariffs completely.  So the clock is already ticking – The Bahamas’ EPA obligations with Europe require us to reduce tariffs on EU imports by 2014.

What is VAT?

So what exactly is a value added tax?  VAT is a consumption-based tax, much like a sales tax, but it is collected “in pieces” along the production chain.  It is estimated that over 70 percent of the world’s population live in countries which apply VAT.

Unlike customs duties, it is applied on all sales, including goods and services.  VAT tax rates generally vary between 10 percent and 20 percent and the final rate selected for The Bahamas would depend on how much revenue needs to be raised to replace other taxes as well as to close the deficits mentioned earlier.

Let us look at an example of how VAT actually works, taken from The Atlantic Magazine, May 2010.  Consider a loaf of bread you buy in a grocery store for a dollar.  You have a farmer, a baker, and a supermarket along the production chain.  Finally, let’s set the VAT rate at 10 percent:

1. The farmer grows the wheat and sells it to the baker for 20 cents.  The VAT is two cents.  The baker pays the farmer 22 cents, and the farmer sends two cents in VAT to the government.

2. The baker makes a loaf and sells it to the supermarket for 60 cents.  The VAT is six cents.  The supermarket pays the baker 66 cents, of which six cents is VAT.  The baker sends the government four cents, which is the six cents in VAT on the bread sale less a two cent credit from the government for the VAT he paid when he bought the wheat.

3. The store sells the loaf to me for a dollar which costs me $1.10, including tax.  The store sends the government four cents total – the 10 cents it collected in VAT on its sales, minus the six cents it paid to the baker in VAT, which it gets back in a credit.  In total, the government gets two cents from the farmer, four cents from baker, and four cents from the store.  That equals 10 cents on a final sale of a dollar for a 10 percent VAT.

If that sounds overly complicated, you might be asking yourself why not simply add a sales tax on the final transaction?  Believe it or not, it is easier to collect VAT than a sales tax because of these various stages and built-in paperwork along the chain.

A retail sales tax would have been very easy to avoid because there’s no counterparty to the transaction besides the end consumer.

Look at the baker in the VAT.  The baker may want to avoid paying the VAT to the government but he knows the grocery store will report the purchase in order to claim its VAT credit.  If it is paying attention, the government should be able to go to the baker and say “you forgot to report your 60 cents of sales and six cents of VAT which you owe”.

That mechanism represents the system of checks and balances within the VAT system.  A lot of research suggests that sales taxes are difficult to enforce when you get to rates above six to 10 percent because people find ways around them, such as under-invoicing or unreported cash sales that occur under the table.

From the example above, it is clear that the introduction of a VAT system will require significant changes on the part of the government, as well as from the private sector, which would be forced to assume the role of tax collector.

Government would need to address organizational issues such as setting up a separate VAT or Tax Office, staffing requirements and training, deciding how much lead-in time is necessary and informing the general public of the transition.

Companies involved with VAT administration will face significant invoicing and bookkeeping requirements, will have to coordinate filing and payment requirements and will ultimately be subject to VAT audits, refunds and penalties.

Next week we will look at the Barbados experience with implementing VAT and the lessons learned for The Bahamas.  We will also make the argument for why a modest corporate tax should be included in the discussion.

• CFAL is a sister company of The Nassau Guardian under the AF Holdings Ltd. umbrella.  CFAL provides investment management, research, brokerage and pension services.  For comments, please contact CFAL at: column@cfal.com

Jul 04, 2012

Value added tax, part 2

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International