not decided to scrap plans to levy a special annual fee on professionals.

Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bermuda (ICAB) president Mr. Anthony Joaquin made the comment after Minister of Finance Grant Gibbons tabled legislation on Friday in the House of Assembly delaying implementation of the fee until January, 1997.

Dr. Gibbons said yesterday that while there were still plans to levy the fee, the proposed delay in implementation is designed to consult further with the various professional bodies in order to consider changes to the scheme's structure.

Premier David Saul, who was then the Finance Minister, introduced the fees, which ranged from $50 to $2,500 for lawyers, accountants, doctors, architects, engineers, in his last Budget.

Mr. Joaquin said: "I hope that the postponement will allow some type of amendment to take place. In its present form, it represents a serious threat to the membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bermuda. "We will continue to make representations on behalf of our 550 members. But membership is voluntary and only about 15 percent or 85 to 100 people have to be members.

"We hope deferral means an eventual change.'' Lawyers are expected to discuss the deferral at the Bermuda Bar Council's regular monthly meeting.

Bar Council president Mrs. Elizabeth Jones said: "It hasn't really been considered by Bar Council. We'll be meeting tomorrow and will no doubt consider it at that point. I can't give an opinion because we really haven't discussed it.'' Dr. Gibbons said: "The concept of the professional registration tax, I think, was generally accepted to be a reasonable one. In fact, in terms of a lot of the different professional bodies who have come in to talk to first of all, Dr. David Saul, and then myself, in most cases there's a sense that they don't mind paying a tax.

"The difficulty with the professional registration's tax was the fact that it put the burden of collection on associations. A lot of those groups, like ICAB and the Bar association, weren't set up to collect tax in the first place.

"It was looking like there would be a mass resignation from some of these professional bodies, which was not what Government, or the professional bodies wanted.

"We've had a lot of discussions and haven't yet resolved what would be a more equitable way of collecting the various professional taxes.

"Of course, there's also been quite a bit of comment from the various bodies about the amount of the tax, as could be expected.'' Dr. Gibbons said the provisions are still open to changes and the legislative instrument before Parliament is simply to delay the matter, until some decisions can be taken.

He said: "We were running out of time before it was to be implemented and we hadn't decided a fair way of collecting that tax. This will give us more time.'' HOA TAX