If 2,000,000 tourists come to Jamaica per year and spend $1,000, where does money go?

[jsteil]

jsteil,

I think you are misinformed, but even the foreign owned resorts have to pay taxes to the government. There is their corporate income tax, the GCT on all purchases the guests make (the total AI bill, the room, bars, restaurants, stores besides the duty free) as well as the new room tax which hits the larger mega resorts such as foreign owned Spanish chains the hardest, the charge is per room per night:

1 to 50 rooms US$1
51 to 100 rooms US$2
101 rooms and over US$4

If by chance a resort chain gets a cruise ship to deliver their food, they still have to pay import duty taxes just as in all imported goods. They are simply using the cruise ship instead of a cargo ship - but the import duties work exactly the same.

I did state that they paid taxes. The delivering of food was from a Life & Debt documantary on free trade zones in Jamaica.

[Rob]

I did state that they paid taxes. The delivering of food was from a Life & Debt documantary on free trade zones in Jamaica.

While Life & Debt is an excellent historical documentary explaining how the old IMF and World Bank operations worked at the time and did leave Jamaica in worse shape than when it began, it needs to be put in its historical perspective. The World Trade Center buildings were both still standing when that documentary was released and the world has undergone significant changes since then.

Michael Manley was interviewed for the documentary and he died back in 1997. Released in April of 2001, the IMF under went restructuring with less "draconian" rules in 2005 and then again last year. I am in no way defending the IMF (frankly, they dont care about what I say anyway - grin), but facts being what they are, they have eased up a bit on their old dictatorial way of micro-managing the economy's of their loaner countries.

Since that movie was released Jamaica has gotten out of "partnership" with the IMF under the PNP and then back into "partnership" with the IMF under the JLP. When the PNP came back into the government as the ruling party, they have renegotiated the terms of the loans from the IMF, which was unthinkable back in 2001 when the movie was released.

The free trade zone rules have changed substantially as well since 2001, with the current free trade zone rules bearing little resemblance to the rules in effect 13 years ago.

Thank you for your explanation. What you said would make perfect sense if this was 2001 when the documentary was released. But the times have changed and so has those trade zone laws.