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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Antigua: Sandals must pay outstanding taxes

by

261 days ago
20241105
Executive chairman of Sandals Resorts International, Adam Stewart

Executive chairman of Sandals Resorts International, Adam Stewart

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has told the Ja­maica-based San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al (SRI) to con­sid­er re­mov­ing its prop­er­ty from his coun­try af­ter he claimed that the lux­u­ry ho­tel brand, San­dals, has adopt­ed a pol­i­cy of not want­i­ng to pay tax­es.

Speak­ing on his week­end ra­dio pro­gramme, Browne told lis­ten­ers that San­dals, which owns the 373-room San­dals Grande An­tigua, a six-star, all-in­clu­sive, adults-on­ly re­sort, owes an es­ti­mat­ed EC$30 mil­lion (US$11.1 mil­lion) in tax­es.

He said most of the tax­es owed are from the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Sales Tax (AB­ST) which San­dals col­lect­ed for the gov­ern­ment and was hold­ing on to por­tions of the mon­ey.

“I don’t un­der­stand why these ‘so-called’ in­vestors feel that they are the on­ly game in town and are the on­ly stake­hold­ers to ben­e­fit. So they try to wring every ounce of rev­enue out of the busi­ness and they don’t want the gov­ern­ment to get any­thing in the form of tax­es,” Browne said, adding “I have been through this al­ready with San­dals and I don’t want to go down that road with them again.”

He said while he did not want to make the is­sue a pub­lic mat­ter, he was nonethe­less ap­peal­ing to San­dals to co­op­er­ate with the In­land Rev­enue De­part­ment (IRD) so as to avoid an­oth­er pub­lic spat,

Browne re­called that San­dals had a re­cent is­sue with the Ba­hamas where it end­ed up hav­ing to pay “some mon­ey.”

“Every­where they go, this is their modus operan­di! Every­where they go, there is a feel­ing that they don’t want to pay gov­ern­ment tax­es and that they are the ones who must ex­tract all these prof­its so that they can ex­pand.

“Well, I want to tell my dear friend, Adam Stew­art, (San­dals’ ex­ec­u­tive chair­man), San­dals is not the on­ly stake­hold­er when you open your ho­tels in a Caribbean coun­try; you have staff who de­serve a good pay; you have the gov­ern­ment who ought to get its fair share of tax­es; you can­not re­ly ex­clu­sive­ly on ex­ploit­ing con­ces­sions and to push gov­ern­ments in­to the ground; you all need to stop it!”

Browne said that the San­dals’ mod­el is rem­i­nis­cent of the colo­nial pe­ri­od and slav­ery and that he is very dis­ap­point­ed that a Caribbean brand, which is loved and ad­mired by the peo­ple of the re­gion, would be en­gaged in the ex­ploita­tion of Caribbean peo­ple.

“This is a colo­nial­ist mod­el that does not work for the Caribbean peo­ple and San­dals needs to end this prac­tice im­me­di­ate­ly,” Browne said on the ra­dio pro­gramme, adding that as a beloved Caribbean brand, San­dals ought to feel proud that it is mak­ing a worth­while con­tri­bu­tion to the Caribbean coun­tries with­in which it op­er­ates.

“You should be proud to be able to say that your work­ers are mak­ing a de­cent salary so that they could af­ford a mort­gage, a good car etc. It’s not about you ex­pand­ing while oth­ers are suf­fer­ing.

“We can’t even at­tract work­ers to the ho­tels sec­tor be­cause of the low wages, while you are mak­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars each year out of each of these small economies and every time there is an as­sess­ment, you come with all kinds of rea­sons why you should not be pay­ing.

“I’m tired of it. If this is go­ing to be your at­ti­tude go­ing for­ward where on­ly San­dals ben­e­fits, then take your ho­tel else­where; and I am very se­ri­ous,” Prime Min­is­ter Browne said, re­it­er­at­ing that he does not want an­oth­er pub­lic spat with the ho­tel.

SRI has not re­spond­ed to Browne’s ac­cu­sa­tions, who al­so not­ed that he was ‘shocked’ when he was told that the ho­tel was not co­op­er­at­ing with the IRD.

He said the is­sue with San­dals is not an An­tigua and Bar­bu­da prob­lem, but a Caribbean prob­lem, as the com­pa­ny’s poli­cies through­out the re­gion are the same every­where. (CMC)


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