Tax Department Transitioning to Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority

The Belize Tax Service Department BTSD has confirmed that the process for the department to become a statutory body is already underway. Cabinet announced the plans last week which spurred the Public Service Union (PSU) to sound an alarm, saying that the union heard of the transition for the first time on July 16. He said that there are major concerns about the fate of the staff, many of whom are career public servants. Today, Director General of the BTSD Michelle Longsworth told Love News that the department is changing to a Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority (SARA), because tax collection in Belize needs to keep up with the times.

Michelle Longsworth, Director General, BTSD: “Transitioning to a semi-autonomous structure will allow us to improve services, it will allow us to invest in our people and it will also allow us to respond faster to the needs of the country. All the while we will still remain publicly accountable. The government model under the Belize Tax Service has served us well. There’s nothing wrong there if you want to put it like that but the pace and the complexity of modern tax administration requires a more agile institution. Those are some of the reasons why we’re moving to a next stage in our reform initiatives, because it’s a continuous reform. On the surface, the public mainly sees domestic functions, things like registration, filing, audits. But behind the scenes, as a tax administration, we are facing growing international obligations. Things like cross border data exchange, to tackling crypto transactions, implementing  global minimum tax rules under pillar two. We are looking at things like automatic exchange of information, the new CARB standards. What is important to note that the revenue that we’re presenting collecting remains in the consolidated revenue fund. That does not change. The taxes we’re collecting from taxpayers is for government. So that will not change.”

Longsworth said that the staff will have the option to either stay on under the new system or transfer elsewhere into the public service. 

Michelle Longsworth, Director General, BTSD:“The whole aspect of the transition should start in December and roll over into 2026. And that means the whole looking at how staff will be treated,  what options staff will have to move over. And I must be clear here, the government’s commitment is that no person from the Belize Tax Service will be losing their jobs. So that is important for us to say that at the end of the day they will not be losing their jobs. They will have a choice whether they want to remain with the wider public service. And if that is their choice, they will be offered or reclassified into another ministry or department. If they choose to go with the semi-autonomous revenue authority, it will be clean cut, meaning that they will have to resign from the public service and start new employment with the new organization. So  we’ve looked at all the best practices for other tax administration around the world in the Caribbean that have done this and we are ensuring that if there were errors made or mistakes made, that we do not make the same mistakes.”

The PSU is calling a meeting with employees of the BTSD on July 29 to discuss the change