Boosting Tax Compliance Through Digital Platforms: Insights from Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) Officials, as Over $1.5 Billion Tax Debt Awaits Collection

Stories by Marlon Madden

The Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) is hoping that greater use of digital platforms will help with compliance as it seeks to collect the over $1.5 billion owed by taxpayers.

On Monday, local tax officials joined their counterparts from across the Commonwealth in the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA) senior leadership programme.

Speaking with reporters on the sidelines, Revenue Commissioner at the BRA Louisa Lewis-Ward said in recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of individuals opting for online payment

methods.

As such, she said, the BRA was keen on continuing its buildout of digital services.

“Significant numbers of taxpayers we have seen over the last three years, maybe up to about 60 to 70 per cent, have shifted from joining lines to paying and obtaining services on the various platforms. So it means that is what taxpayers want. They want ease of business, they want fluidity in business, they want to be able to make changes in their tax returns and tax forms easily. So we are building the platforms to allow them to do that,” said Lewis-Ward.

The latest of such platforms is the land tax bills and payment portal which was launched on August 26.

Lewis-Ward said it has been “working

very well” so far, with both overseas and domestic payments being made through that system.

“It is part of the initiative to upgrade systems to make it easy to build public trust, make it useful for taxpayers so that you’re not standing in long lines. For those of you who think that you still need to stand in a line, that is not necessary any longer. So you can go online and do things related to licensing, vehicle registrations, and paying for weight certificates. You can go online to the TAMIS system and you can pay your VAT, corporate tax, personal tax. So it is all part of an overall initiative to improve services and practices,” she said.

“It has allowed us to drive significant compliance programmes. As you know we talk about refunds quite often, but taxpayers also owe the Authority [about] $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion. So, therefore, the enforcement capacity has to be there to collect.

“What we have seen is significant compliance from large and medium-sized taxpayers alike. So we welcome the initiative and we put together teams who meet with large taxpayers on a regular basis to make sure that the compliance is there so that the Government can collect revenues to allow us to do the social spending that we want to have at the end of the day,” she added.