St. Maarten Private Eye

The majority of the foreign home owners rent their house, villa, condo out to other visitors. The locals do not. Infact this is where the problem lies, That vacation home is not used only by the owner but also by many others who rent weekly or monthly.
I happen to know a woman who has one apartment in beaconhill, 3 apartments in Simpsonbay, another in Pelican. She is an American citizen not registered on SXM as a resident. She is making a killing off of renting her places via the internet. She is not paying any taxes to the SXM government for room tax while she is renting weekly and monthly. I doubt if she is paying any to Uncle Sam as well since she is conducting her rental bussiness over the internet. There are many just like this lady, they own condos and many houses which they rent out weekly- yet they demand police presence, prompt ambulance, good roads and street lights- they pay nothing to government coffers. Keep in mind that many of these houses and condos are registered in Lmt's and offshore name accounts making finding the owners very difficult.