St. Maarten Private Eye

Tax Talk

In a previous edition of the “Today” newspaper of March 29, 2008, a headline read “Verdonk: The Netherlands also responsible for bankruptcy Antilles”. But it is clear from the date of the Dutch document that follows, that the contents were forwarded to the local politicians and even some politicians on federal level. In 1990, the Netherlands amended their tax legislation to bring it more in line with the realities of the time. The present bankruptcy ordinance was written in 1931. The collection laws were written in the 1940’s. In spite of the booming economy, most businesses have their assets registered in offshore companies in other territories. The present collection legislature is not geared toward reality. The local government has not seen it fit for the last 25 years to invest in personnel, training and systems. The Island Council has not seen it fit to rewrite the Collection ordinance of 1970 in spite of the difficulties faced by the Receiver’s Office. The inability to ammend or lack of interest to rewrite the Collection ordinance of 1970, has cost the society immensely. There is no money to pay for infrastructural improvements, the environment is being destroyed, poverty and crime is on the rise. See below:

Business and Labor | Constitutional Change | Dutch Politics | Federal Politics | Island Politics | sybille's blog | 11 comments | read more

Sarah's Photo Op success

Sarah's trip last week to Holland was hailed with a front page headline by the Today as a success, unfortunately neither the article or the editorial that went with it could tell us what the success was.

I can see two things that could be reported as a success, the first being that Sarah was able to meet with lots of important people, the second being the photo op mileage gained from the trip.

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Constitutional Change | Dutch Politics | Island Politics | Local Hero's blog | login or register to post comments | read more

Not if but what. - SXM New Status

"Change is important, but not at all costs" and Change in (SXM) attitudes likely"

The headlines yesterday about Sarah's new attitude towards the Kingdom (Holland and Curacao in particular) put me in a blogging frame of mind. Someone beat me to it though, sort of, with this comment in Voodoo's previous post titled Vanity, Pride and Thin Skins. The writer is pretty much on target with my thoughts on the matter. There are a few things I want to add though, and because I think this story deserves a fresh blog page I will put them below here instead of in a comment there. I have also added links to related news on the Daily Herald website these past few days.

St. Maarten needs a New Status and to be free of Curacao, I fully support this and I think most people can agree with this point. The issue here is not whether St. Maarten will get New Status, but what form will it take. It's about vanity, pride and ego over rationality, practicality and wisdom.

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Constitutional Change | Dutch Politics | Federal Politics | Island Politics | Hady Nufyet's blog | 10 comments | read more