Well we can all try to pretend to be incredulous and indignant. The legal reality as any boat that fished since 1997 was required to fill out the forms and pay the registration fees for the vessel each year. Hopefully the Charter Operators Roundtable or whoever leads the yachting lobbying effort is focused on the bigger challenge. The budget plan going forward is to....

Our expectations are, that in combination with the measures taken, we are projecting total additional revenue of Twenty-Six point Two ($26.2M) Million Dollars.

"We further intend to, introduce an environmental levy and to harmonise the existing fee and tax structure for hotels and yachts, to review and revise the current marine fee structure by consolidating existing fees and creating a collection system that is fair and easy to monitor." Premier and Minister for Finance Dr. the Hon. D. Orlando Smith

The stated plan to charge hotel operator and boat operators the same marginal tax rate of revenue is a much greater long term issue than the fishing fees most of us have been avoiding. The Moorings/Sunsail/TUI would be the largest historic offender. Then there is the Tsunami from the secret banking industry. The BVI operates on +/-$300M. The secret banking industry creates $200M of that. Those $$$,$$$,$$$ are at risk this week and may disappear. My point is be careful what we complain about and focus on the rational practical solutions to pay our fair share going forward. The hotel or sleep tax in the USVI was was to 12.5% in January.