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Dear Editor,
The recent proposal by the Government of Sint Maarten to double the room tax from 5% to 10% is more than just bad math; it is a symptom of a government that refuses to look where the real money is. As a practitioner who has navigated our island’s financial maze for over three decades, I see this not as a solution for a cash-strapped budget, but as a desperate maneuver by a ship sailing without a rudder.
The “Financial Ghost” Economy: The government claims it needs revenue, yet it ignores the massive fiscal leakage occurring right under its nose. To test the integrity of our local commerce, I have personally requested receipts at various establishments. In one instance, after spending over $100 at a significant retail outlet, I was handed a small, unnumbered, non-duplicate slip of paper that simply read: “clothing items.” As an accountant, I recognize this for what it is: a financial ghost. Without serialized numbering or a carbon copy for internal administration, there is no audit trail. For all intents and purposes, these transactions never entered the national ledger. If $100+ purchases are treated with this fiscal casualness in our supermarkets and retail stores, the government is essentially operating on an “honor system” that is being widely ignored.
The Institutional Blind Spot: Harbor and Casinos Let us be brutally honest: if the “big” stakeholders—the large-scale supermarkets, the casinos, and the major hotels—were truly paying their fair share, Sint Maarten would not be in these dire straits.
We are a duty-free port, but “duty-free” should not mean “oversight-free.” Thousands of containers arrive at our harbor annually. Who is verifying that the “toilet paper” listed on a bill of lading isn’t actually high-value luxury merchandise? Furthermore, we have government controllers at our casinos who appear to be doing little more than “hanging around.” Without forensic, daily audits of casino intake, we are leaving the door wide open for under-reporting in our most lucrative sectors.
The Real Estate Mirage: Look around our hillsides. Multi-million dollar villas are rising like monuments to a prosperity that the government’s budget fails to reflect. Many of these projects are “fiscal islands”—built with imported labor and materials, contributing almost nothing to the local “multiplier effect.” Most troubling is the presence of prominent individuals maintaining estates that their declared incomes could not possibly support. In any functioning society, these discrepancies would trigger an audit; here, they seem to trigger a promotion.
The Path Forward: Increasing taxes on the compliant middle class and the stay-over tourist is the path of least resistance. It is easier to tax the tourist who can’t vote than to enforce the law on the big businesses and prominent property holders.
We do not have a revenue problem; we have a courage and competence problem. Before asking for another cent from the tourism sector, the government must:
Mandatory Fiscal Integration: Require cloud-synced POS systems for all businesses to kill the “cash box” economy.
A Civil Service Audit: Freeze political hires and align the salaries of MPs and Ministers with the economic reality of the people.
Border & Gaming Integrity: Implement physical container inspections and daily forensic audits of casino drops.
Doubling the tax rate won’t stop the ship from hitting the rocks if the hull is full of holes. It’s time to fix the leaks, not just pump more water into the tank.
Respectfully,
Dr. Clifford Illis Accountant, Researcher, and Educator
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