Where Do Businesses Pay the Lowest and Highest Taxes in the Caribbean?

Above: Port of Spain (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Last week, we launched our series on Business in the Caribbean by looking at the number of days it takes to set up a business in most of the countries in the region.

What about taxes on businesses?

We took a look at data from the World Bank’s Doing Business project, which examined the total tax rates in countries around the world.

The World Bank defines the total tax rate as the “amount of taxes and mandatory contributions payable by businesses after accounting for allowable deductions and exemptions as a share of commercial profits.”

Taxes withheld, such as personal income tax, or taxes collected and remitted to tax authorities like VAT or sales tax, were excluded in the data.

The data looked at the rates in 2013, and found that businesses paid the lowest tax rates in Trinidad and Tobago, where businesses paid an overall rate of 29.1 percent, with the highest tax rates in St Kitts and Nevis, where businesses paid a total rate of 51.9 percent.

See below for the full chart ranking the region on business taxes.

The World Bank did not include data for Aruba, the BVI, Cayman, Cuba, Curacao, St Martin/St Maarten, the Turks and Caicos and the US Virgin Islands.