BELIZE-Government denies information posted on social media.

BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC – The Belize government says it wants to clarify what it termed “false and misleading” information posted on social media regarding taxes for land transactions.

Contrary to the misinformation in the social post, the Cabinet approved the transition of land tax collection and enforcement from the Lands and Surveys Department to the Belize Tax Services Department (BTS) on April 1 this year.

It said that this Cabinet decision was communicated to the general public in a statement on April 3, which stated, “To enhance land tax collection and enforcement, Cabinet gave its approval for the transfer of responsibility for Land Tax collection to the… BTS through a phased one-year transition process involving inter-agency coordination between the BTS, Lands Department, and other relevant authorities and the use of the online IRIS platform for assessment, billing, and collection thereof.”

The government said this transition aligns with its broader tax reform strategy of centralized and digitized tax administration to enhance compliance, efficiency, and revenue collection. “This approach also reflects international best practice, which advocates for consolidating tax collection functions within a single agency to improve efficiency, compliance, and overall tax performance.”

The government says, on average, it collects an estimated seven million dollars (One Belize dollar=US$0.49 cents) annually in land taxes.

It said technical analysis indicates that this roughly represents a 15 per cent compliance rate, leaving almost BDZ$40 million uncollected from landowners every year.

“It is expected that the transition of collection and enforcement to BTS could substantially improve the compliance rate on land taxes, thereby providing much-needed financial resources to progress the Government’s Plan Belize 2.0 agenda, particularly in areas of education, health, citizen security, and infrastructure.

“The transition is being implemented in a phased approach, starting with inter-agency agreements and legal amendments. It will include comprehensive data cleansing, matching landowner and property data with BTS’s TIN registry, followed by secure data migration to the Integrated Revenue Information System (IRIS) platform.”

The government said subsequent phases will involve IRIS module development, system testing, stakeholder consultations, and a robust public information campaign.