Grant Thornton Managing Partner Paul Gomez expressed support for the implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT) and predicted that Bahamians can expect to see an expansion in job opportunities and a boom in the accounting industry.

Despite the public opposition to VAT in the past months, Mr. Gomez maintained that the government had to increase its tax base.

“You will see more Bahamians qualifying as taxation specialist and that’s something that we would not have considered years ago or be heard of years ago,” he said.

“This is a whole new sort of industry being created, major accounting firms and mid size firms will have tax departments, this is really the advent of the dawn of a taxation industry for accounting firms.”

Mr. Gomez comments’ came during a VAT seminar at the British Colonial Hilton on Friday.

About 150 participants in the business community took part in the workshop hosted by Grant Thornton.

Mr. Gomez said that with the looming implementation of VAT the firm saw the need to host a workshop in an effort to prepare participants for the new tax regime.

“VAT is upon us, it has been enacted, this seminar is to basically get our clients, friends and businesses in general VAT ready and prepare them for VAT, educate them in terms of what is essential, what is required of them, what the law requires, what are some of the penalties and obligations in the event that they do not conform and comply with the regulation,” he said.

“What we have done, we brought one of our specialist out of the United Kingdom, Grant Thornton UK Taxation Specialist Alexander Baulf. He has a tremendous amount of experience and he has been going through the mechanics of the legislation and how it applies to Bahamians and he also injected his experience gained working with European nations and other countries in Latin America.”

VAT is slated on stream January 1 at a rate of 7.5 per cent.