KRALENDIJK – The Executive Council of the Public Entity Bonaire (OLB) will proceed to collect the Room Tax which hotels have collected from guests but have not remitted to Government.

This can be understood from the answers provided by Deputy Commissioner of Finance, Clark Abraham, on Thursday afternoon to councillor Cyrill Vrolijk. The exchange between Vrolijk and Abraham took place during the discussion in the standing committee B & O about the upcoming changes in the Visitor Entry Tax introduced last year.

The reason for implementing a new Tourism Tax system was, among other things, the fact that the OLB was losing many millions annually due to uncollected or, in some cases, collected but not remitted Room Tax.

Deadline

Abraham did mention that there are limits to the timeframe within which the OLB can still claim funds from hotels and other types of accommodation that were obligated to charge and remit over five dollars per guest, per night in Room Taxes, before the introduction of the VET.

“The law sets certain deadlines within which unremitted taxes can still be collected,” noted Abraham. However, the commissioner indicated that Government will not simply let it slide. Currently, an inventory is being made of the extent of the problem, after which concrete action will be taken to collect unpaid taxes.

Car Rental Tax

Although Vrolijk specifically inquired about the lodging guest tax, the issue also applies to the so-called car rental tax. However, the amounts involved are smaller than those for some hotels.