Philipsburg:--- Minister of Finance Roland Tuitt said his Ministry is in the very final stages of the last draft of the 2013 budget. The Finance Minister said that the government of St. Maarten is able to present a balanced budget for the year 2013 even though only last week he mentioned that he had a budget with 29 million guilders deficit.
Minister Tuitt said they managed to balance the budget by putting more effort on compliance. The Minister said in 2013 the government of St. Maarten will be concentrating heavily on tax compliance. "All companies that are operating on St. Maarten without being registered and are not paying taxes. I can tell you now that next year you will be caught and when you are caught then we as government will use the full force of the law on you. Therefore, I urge those businesses to do the right thing now." Government also applied what they termed as ad-taxes which will be levied only on retail sale. Tuitt said adding the ad-tax will generate approximately 15 million guilders, tax compliance will generate 10 million guilders, the increase in casino fees will generate 7.5 million guilders, and the government of St. Maarten is expected to collect one million guilders from the Central Bank.
The Finance Minister said expenditures have been decreased by 10% on material costs. Tuitt said that the government of St. Maarten also included the monies that were paid by USONA and AMFO which amounts to 7 million guilders.
On the issue of the Central Bank, the Minister said that the board members on the supervisory board of the central bank are not executing their tasks. The St. Maarten Finance Minister who just recently returned from Curacao said the board members are not attending meetings and the government of Curacao will have to see how they will proceed with the current board members. Minister Tuitt said that just recently the Council of Ministers of Curacao invited the board members to a meeting and they did not show up and they also did not show up to a meeting called by the shareholder representative. Tuitt said he does not know why the board members are acting the way they are but what he does know is that a solution has to found because they are hampering the operations of the Central Bank.