Businesses hit hard as govt fees soar

Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­[email protected]

As the in­crease in traf­fic fees con­tin­ues to draw pub­lic at­ten­tion, the re­al­i­ty of some oth­er fees is al­so rais­ing con­cerns, par­tic­u­lar­ly those af­fect­ing busi­ness­es.

For in­stance, the cost of a work per­mit is now $900 per month. That is $10,800 for one year, and in ad­di­tion to an ap­pli­ca­tion fee of $1,200, bring­ing the to­tal to $12,000. For two years, the fee is $22,800 and for three years, $33,600.

WORK PER­MIT FEES

Du­ra­tion Pre­vi­ous Fee Cur­rent Fee

12 months $6,000 $12,000

24 months $11,400 $22,800

36 months $16,800 $33,600

Store own­ers will al­so feel the im­pact, as the Stan­dard Bar Li­cence, the Spir­it Gro­cer’s Li­cence and Spe­cial Restau­rant Li­cence fees were all raised to $9,000, while the Night Bar Li­cence fee was in­creased to $13,500. These fee in­creas­es ap­ply to liquor sell­ers in all ar­eas.

BAR LI­CENCE FEE IN­CREAS­ES

Li­cence Pre­vi­ous Fee Cur­rent Fee

Spir­it Re­tail­er’s Li­cence $4,500 $9,000

Spir­it Gro­cer’s Li­cence $4,500 $9,000

Spe­cial Restau­rant Li­cence $4,500 $9,000

Night Bar Li­cence $6,750 $13,500

Al­so see­ing a ma­jor in­crease are busi­ness­es with gam­ing ma­chines. Tax­es on amuse­ment gam­ing ma­chines, such as ar­cade video games and claw ma­chines, have in­creased from $6,000 per ma­chine per year to $25,000 per ma­chine per year, while tax­es on elec­tron­ic roulette de­vices have in­creased from $120,000 per ma­chine per year to $200,000 per ma­chine per year.

GAM­ING TAX

Tax per ma­chine, Pre­vi­ous Fee Cur­rent Fee

per year

Amuse­ment Gam­ing Ma­chines $6,000 $25,000

Elec­tron­ic Roulette De­vices $120,000 $200,000

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a 10 per cent cus­toms du­ty fee and 12.5 per cent VAT for high val­ue elec­tron­ic ve­hi­cles have been in­tro­duced. These ve­hi­cles will al­so be sub­ject to a tiered rate for their mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax.

Mean­while, the age lim­it for im­port­ing used petrol, diesel or CNG ve­hi­cles has in­creased from three years to eight years, and for light com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles, it has been moved from sev­en years to 10 years.