Opposition Labels Trade License Deferral a Political Stunt

The Opposition has labeled the government’s decision to defer the implementation of the new trade license regime as a cheap political ploy. While the new regime was initially set to take effect in January 2025, the government has announced that it will push back its implementation to October 2025. The change was set to see trade licenses charged based on the business’s operation size compared to a percentage of the rental value. While the government has said the decision was made after careful deliberation with the business community, today UDP Corozal North Area Representative Hugo Patt rejected that notion. Patt says the government is simply waiting until after the elections before adding a new tax on the business sector.

Hugo Patt, Corozal North Area Representative: “At the moment that you implement a particular tax, at the moment that you’re starting to collect a particular license, any monies that you collect from any particular business, we all know that the businesses will not consume that additional cost. What do you think will happen? If they have to pay $100 for a particular trade license you can make sure that $100 being collected the businesses will actually tax it on the consumers. So what is actually happening is that you are putting an additional weight on consumers on a food basket, Madam Speaker, that is already high, on a cost of living that is already at the skies, on inflation that can actually that we know and we can see that actually has no stop, it has no ceiling, it’s going to continue. What I can see and I can tell you is that elections are coming right around the corner and I think that it is not politically convenient for the party and government to actually start move on an ants nest in the particular in the villages where life is already hard I don’t see how this party could have actually implemented a bill that sees our village councils going after the the businesses and taxing them. We eventually know what will happen. The businesses will trickle down to the consumers. This, before an election, is not the best thing to do. But to the people in our communities, all I want to tell you is this don’t you take the line, don’t you take the hook that you will not be taxed. The bill has passed. The trade licensing act is actually in full effect it is just a matter of implementation. You will not be taxed now, you will be taxed after the general elections.”