By Ryan Gilkes
The Barbados Revenue Authority’s (BRA) move to recoup over $4.3 million in tax debt has raked in three times as much in bids from two auctions – $12.3 million – in bids for 13 properties that fell under the auctioneer’s hammer.
Scores of would-be buyers turned up to Sky Mall in Haggatt Hall on Friday looking for deals and placing bids for properties that ranged in size from 114 square feet to six acres. This followed Wednesday’s auction which raked in $7.4 million in bids.
The BRA’s acting director of audit and compliance, Angela Durham, said they were forced to auction the properties following over 10 years of non-payments, adding that several unsuccessful attempts to try to get the defaulters to comply.
BRA auctioneer Gordon Broome noted some of the debt owed to the authority stretched as far back as 20 years.
He said: “A lot of the debt that we’re trying to collect is [from] between 2001 to current, and we give those persons a chance right up [to the day of the auction], but some of those persons still don’t come in and pay.”
The BRA official explained that it sought to become compliant with international financial regulations, to stay off of international blacklists, while suggesting that the auction was a last resort.
“When you have those international agencies come to do compliance visits to Barbados and they do an audit regarding how we are collecting our money and see on the records that we have this amount of money owed to us, it can cause us to be blacklisted as well,” he said.
“We give individuals up to 24 hours before the auction or even the day of the auction to become compliant with the Revenue Authority. So it is just a matter of collecting those monies that are owed to the country.”
Broome added: “This is not a fly-by-night process. We go through a full process of compliance with the individual and go through the process within the authority to see who is owing and who is not, and we give you that chance to come in and pay.”
Throughout the process, concerns were raised by some of the bidders that starting bids were too high, but the BRA officials dismissed this notion, telling reporters that in all cases, the starting prices of the properties were better than, if not comparable to, what was available on the open market.
Durham said: “The starting price of the properties is in keeping with the value of the properties . . . . The size of the property and the location determine the value, so the starting price would be reflective of the value of the specific property.”
In instances where a property is sold for more than is owed, she said, “the Revenue Authority recoups the taxes that are owed and the excess then goes through the legal process to the respective owners”.
The acting director repeated an appeal to those who are not on the list but are in arrears to reach out to the BRA’s Tax Collections Unit in Bridge Street Mall, Bridgetown to organise a payment plan.
“If you don’t have the money upfront to pay in full, you visit the location and you make the arrangement to pay,” Durham said. “You can pay monthly, you can pay weekly, [whichever] is easier for you, but you have to make the arrangement and keep the commitment.”
(RG)
