Changes for the USVI in 2017 ?

Maybe it's the BVI?

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_030799&propertyType=document

Probably reference these upcoming changes (BVI/EU):

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/octs_and_greenland/

Call your Representive to Congress - Donna Christiansen.

The trade agreements do need to change because that is the reason we have problems ordering form the states due to various customs restrictons, etc.

It would be interesting to see how a customs change would affect the jewelry biz. I'm going to pose that question to a Customs Broker friend tomorrow.

My predication: The Government of the Vi will swoop in with an identical tax once the old excise tax regime expires. They'll call it a Sales Tax and the current Gross Receipts tax will stay in place.

i heard the government was thinking of putting a tax on cigs, alcohol and a sales tax?

In order to replace the Gross Receipts Tax completely, a Sales Tax would have to be round about 13.5%. It would seem more logical to me that the GVI would add an "additional" Sales Tax of 5% to replace the current 5% Excise Tax. This would be new revenue because the Excise Tax goes to the Federal Government not the territory. You can be sure they won't let that money slip away and give everyone a break. Won't happen.

Regarding taxing cigs and alcohol, its ridiculous that those products (and gambling/lotto winnings) aren't anywhere near as heavily taxed as they are in other jurisdictions. These so called "sin taxes" could go a long way to funding a territory wide single payer healthcare system.

For example, in Canada, a bottle of Cruzan Rum is $28.00 (US & CDN dollar are almost par now) and a pack of cigs is about $13.00. The pricing differential between here is there is mostly sin taxes that go towards funding universal healthcare.

I wholeheartedly support considerably higher taxes and cigs, alcohol and gambling than we have now.