The St Maarten Casino Operators' Association that represents all the casino operators currently active on St Maarten wishes to clarify certain media articles that have been published over the past weeks with regards to an intended increase of casino fees of Naf 7,500.000.
Contrary to what has been printed in various articles, the latest one of which appeared in Thursday's edition of the Daily Herald, no single casino operator, nor the casino operators as a whole have agreed to paying increased casino fees to the tune of Naf 7,5 million, or any other amount.
Thursday morning's meeting with Minister of Finance Roland Tuitt was requested by the Association following the various news articles, not to 'iron out how the fees will be levied', but to address the issue of the proposed fee increase in principle.
Considering the dire economical situation of the past five years, the lack of knowledge of government's comprehensive tax structure changes for 2013 and beyond, the uncertainty of additional costs to the industry for the much discussed gaming control board and the lack of justification of the proposed Naf 7,5 million that is being asked from the casino industry, the Association informed Minister Tuitt that the casino operators are not in a position to agree to any increase in fees or taxes at this time.
The Association is very well aware of government's efforts to balance the 2013 budget, and supports to the fullest a comprehensive, fair and economically realistic approach to a new tax and fees system for St Maarten, and is prepared to do its part in this new framework. However, the Association cannot support a stop gap measure, which would levy additional fees on the industry that it is simply not capable of paying.
In fact, the Association believes that imposing additional fees on top of the fees currently paid by the casino operators will inevitable force the operators to implement drastic cost cutting measures to compensate for such additional fees, resulting in a zero or, at worst, negative net effect on Government's coffers.
Such cost cutting measures will negatively impact the labor market, as well as the economy as a whole leading to a reduction of government receipts related to wage tax and turn over tax amongst others. In the worst case scenario the increased fees could tip the scale to a point where the operators would no longer consider it viable to keep the doors of all currently operational casinos open.
Today's meeting with Minister Tuitt was open, frank and constructive and furthermore served to clarify a number of industry specific problems and characteristics and as such we believe it was a successful meeting. Notwithstanding the foregoing the Association's position did not change.
In closing, the Association advocates a comprehensive study of the casino industry as the foundation for a more in depth analysis and discussion, which will be required to determine how and if to restructure the taxation on casinos within the framework of Government's new fiscal policy and taxation system due to be rolled out in 2014.