During his declaration on Monday morning, the president of the Comerciantenan Uni Aruba (CUA) Frans Ponson, explained why the ball is in the Parliament’s with regards to protecting citizens from the negative consequences of the BBO increase. Ponson is referring to the BBO law which will soon pass in Parliament and will include the increase of BBO from 6% to 7%. But according to Ponson, in reality, BBO will increase to 7.52%.
Even though the law and the Tax Office (DIMP) state that the increase will be up to 7%, CUA emphasized that both DIMP and the Government know that that law also mentions that you will have to pay the amount on your revenue. This means that starting January, a business will not be able to pay DIMP 7 florins on the 100 florins earned, because the Government law states that one will need to pay the amount on the total revenue of 107 florins which means that the public will be charged 7.52. This is an ongoing discussion that commerce has had with the government for years.
Nevertheless, evaluation of the law offers the opportunity for correction of the mistakes made in the past. Ponson proposed that the Minister of Finance, Xiomara Maduro, and DIMP make the necessary changes of changing the two words in the law which need to explicitly state that businesses can charge the public the 7 florins and pay the same 7 florins to the Government in tax. This will, besides lowering the price that clients are charged, make BBO equal for all business owners.
