The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has stepped up its efforts to ensure that businesses are compliant with the Unincorporated Business Tax (UBT).
Commissioner of the IRD, Ralph Warner said that teams are currently out in the community to get people who operate unincorporated businesses to comply and register with the department.
“There are teams that are literally going out into the community to ascertain who is registered and who is not registered. We started this exercise since last year and we are currently in the English Harbour area. We have captured a large percent of those businesses already, but we are doing our last lap now,” Warner said yesterday on OBSERVER AM.
“These teams will be going into the capital soon to continue the work being done to ensure that those types of business such as hairdressers, barber shops and so on are registered with special efforts being made with those operating at night and on street corners.”
Warner said that the UBT is not new in terms of what is required and gave the categories that would determine whether or not an unincorporated business would have to pay the tax.
“This is a tax on the net income of the business after your gross revenue minus your expenditure and you pay on the net. There is a threshold of $3,500, so for example if a business is making below $3,500 they would not pay the Unincorporated Business Tax. If you are making between $3,500 and $15,000 you will pay 8 per cent on the chargeable income which is what we call the net amount.”
Warner said that approximately 8,000 businesses, which had been subscribed to the personal income tax, would have automatically been added to the department’s unincorporated business tax registry.
He made a further appeal for unincorporated business owners to comply with the requirement to register.
“Last month, we [announced] a registration fee that is due annually and all Unincorporated Business have to come in so those who are not registered, register,” the IRD commissioner said.