BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - PERSONS in the twin-island Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis who are currently in the process of building their homes as well as those who are considering building in the near future, now have the opportunity to purchase and import building supplies free of duties and customer service charges.
Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and Minister of Finance Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas made this announcement during his weekly radio programme, ‘Ask the PM’.
"In order to both stimulate the economy as well as expand out unprecedented programme of home-ownership, we have unveiled a Building Materials Investment Programme specifically to aid those who are interested home-building. And what this will do is remove all duties and customs service charges from up to EC$400 000 in private-home building supplies purchased by any citizen throughout all of 2012," he said.
The Prime Minister reminded the nation that duties could range from five to 25 percent and customs service charges from six to 12 percent; so the potential savings from the removal of these charges would be substantial.
He also noted that the tax removal applies to both locally purchased materials and those imported.
"And this tax relief applies whether the building supplies are purchased locally or they are imported independently," he explained.
He said that in order to be exempt from paying these taxes, applications must be submitted to the Ministry of Finance, as the programme is an initiative of that Ministry.
Forms are available at the Ministry but can also be downloaded from the website of the Communications Unit of the Prime Minister (CUOPM) at www.cuopm.com.
"The whole idea of a home grown stimulus package is very important to us in this period of global uncertainty," the Prime Minister said.
