Do away with Black Friday and have a VAT-free Friday instead.
That suggestion has come from president of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) Anthony Branker, who is in full support of the initiative becoming an annual event.
Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Trisha Tannis is also in favour of it being held yearly as she believes it benefits both consumers and businesses.
Their comments have come following a successful VAT-free day today.
Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn announced on Saturday that for one day only consumers would pay no Value Added Tax (VAT) on those items normally taxed at 17.5 per cent.
Speaking to Barbados TODAY this evening, Branker made the call for a shift to VAT-free Friday noting however, that Government needed to communicate its intentions with the business community in a timely manner.
“It was quite a good shopping day for consumers. It was not without delays in some instances, some long waits and so forth, but generally everything went well. I must applaud the retailers for putting in the effort to ensure that persons could come and benefit from the VAT-free day this morning,” Branker said.
“I am going to coin a phrase and suggest that we move from Black Friday to VAT-free Friday once a year. The business community welcomed this initiative. Our concern was not the initiative at all but how it was implemented with one full day’s notice.”
As a result, Branker said those businesses that did not have core IT systems that allowed them to remove the VAT from all of the items experienced difficulties and in some instances were forced to remain closed.
The BCCI president said he believed it would be more beneficial if the VAT-free day was not held in the Christmas season as it was already the busiest shopping period of the year.
Meanwhile, Tannis told Barbados TODAY she was 100 per cent in support of the idea.
She said while it was a good initiative to be held annually retailers needed to be kept in the loop about the plans.
“Having it on an annual basis is not an issue. The problem that we had is that we had no notice and that is something that we are extremely disappointed about. Supporting it on an annual basis is not a challenge because it sounds like a very good idea, but we must emphasize that the sector must be given sufficient notice to do so,” Tannis said.
“Broadly I think persons obviously would have pulled whatever resources they could have summoned yesterday from an IT perspective to try to see what they could do to support the initiative today… But we will have to wait and see what happens for the rest of the week before we can actually say whether or not it was successful but we’re glad persons would have been able to benefit from reduced prices today.”
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb
