Prime Minister, the Hon. Philip Davis announced a 5% reduction in VAT on food items in January. Inland Revenue Operations Manager, Dexter Fernander recently spoke with ZNS News about the implementation of the new government policy.

Fernander advised that guidance will be released after the mid year budget. He said, “it will be similar to the other transitional guides where we moved from 12 to 10 and 10 from 7.5 etc. It’s the same document inside there. How do you point your inventory before the new rate comes in? You would have seen that also every year the same individuals that will take part in this new VAT rate is the same individuals who would have taken part in the back to school initiatives. So they’re used to their point of sales systems adjusting to multiple rates. And so we are just waiting for the deliberations with the mid year budget, once that is tabled we will be able to execute the necessary documents.”

The new VAT rate on food is expected to begin on April 1st.