The Public Education Campaign on Value Added Tax (VAT) held a one day workshop last Friday that was focused on what is to come once the tax is implemented early next year.

In what he termed a simple information session, Financial Secretary John Rolle said VAT guidelines will be released as early as sometime this week.

Mr. Rolle announced that training and workshops will commence in August.

The financial secretary was also questioned about the VAT implementation process and whether there were penalties regarding the business registration process.

“The law says you must register or the law will say you must register if you are over the $100,000 mark,” he said

“Now if you are under the $100,000 mark the law says you can still do so voluntarily if you can satisfy the record keeping requirement. If you are over the threshold and you do not register whenever you are found out, an assessment can be done of your sales and the VAT liability can be imputed at that point.”

Some of the key changes noted during the information session dealt with exemption and the way the taxes will be collected.

Mr.Rolle also spoke on whether the tax will also be placed on gaming.

“There is no proposal for a value added tax on gaming but there will be a tax regime for gaming, ” he said

“There will be a regime for gaming, I think in all of the proposals about VAT, there has been a talk about tax on gaming so it’s not that gaming will be exempt from taxation.”

Mr. Rolle said in almost all countries where VAT is in place, the gaming or gambling side is ordinarily approached from a different angle.

He also said that it is too early to determine whether the rate of VAT will fluctuate.

VAT is expected to be introduced at a rate of 7.5 per cent in January 2015.