1. Provide a tax rebate for purchases of goods by tourists.

2. Reform payroll tax structure by providing a uniform tax rate with a fixed tax credit to create progressivity*. Eliminate the assumed remuneration option.

3. Rationalise the customs duty by eliminating special rates and concessions, reducing the number of rate categories and providing a low rate for staples.

4. Expand bonded warehouses to include automobiles but impose a licence fee on warehouse users to pay for the loss of the use of customs receipts, the construction and maintenance of the warehouses, any additional transportation costs and the costs of administering the system.

5. Introduce a proxy for a tax on services by creating an employment licensing scheme. Repeal the corporate services tax.

6. Revise land tax bands and rates over time to increase progressivity.

Expand the tax base (with appropriate land use restrictions) to include undeveloped land.

7. Do not use the tax structure to subsidise particular economic sectors (e.g. hotels or retail trade). All Government subsidies should be conferred through appropriations that are clearly described in the Budget.

Proposals to allow customs duty relief for wines and spirits consumed in hotels and guest houses and for fuel used to produce electricity for hotels and guest houses should be rejected.Appendix A of the Report on the Bermuda Tax System by Harry Gutman and Eric Toder.

*Progressivity. Progressive tax is a system where those with higher incomes pay higher taxes than those with lower incomes ? also called a graduated tax

The consumption of goods is, in general, more heavily taxed than the consumption of services.

The payroll tax favours small over large firms.

The burden of the Bermuda tax system is roughly proportional across income groups.

Retail sales and value added taxes are unsuited to Bermuda because it is too small to support the needed tax collection infrastructure.

The land tax rate structure is steeply graduated and the tax base does not include undeveloped land.

Customs duties are a low cost and efficient way of collecting a consumption tax.Ministry of Finance press release from April 12, 2004