Extra time for businesses to file VAT returns

As a result of the island wide power outage on Thursday, companies filing Value Added Tax (VAT) with the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) have been given until next Monday to complete those filings without being penalised.

This announcement was made on Friday in Parliament by Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn who said he was aware that the outage would have had a significant impact on some businesses being able to file their VAT by Thursday’s deadline.

“So long as the business community [is] able to continue to file their VAT return by Monday, September 25, we will allow for the automatic waiving of penalties and interests that might have been accrued between the filing deadline and then,” he said.

He said this is to “ensure that at least we are able not to have that additional headache imposed on persons because of something that was entirely beyond their control”.

“Therefore, that is something that we want to make sure is widely communicated and the revenue authority will send the appropriate announcements in relation to that matter,” he said. (MM)