Don't Tax My Femininity Campaign

During the 2023/2024 budget presentation, Prime Minister Hon. John Briceño rose in the House of Representatives and stated, "Effective the 1st of April all taxes will be removed from sanitary products for women. It is past time that we put an end to taxing women's femininity something she contributed to young Seidi Quetzal, who is running a campaign ‘Don’t Tax My Femininity’.”

This is a great accomplishment for the government in alleviating a form of tax levied on sanitary feminine products in Belize one way of making every dollar count.

The question was posed to the Financial Secretary Joseph Waight if the government can remove taxes completely from Sanitary Feminine Products in Belize.

He answered, “There are several taxes. The easy one which we already signed the S.I. to remove is the GST so that when it comes to import duty, we belong to Caricom we belong to the Carom external tariff. We'd have to get a waiver from quota I understand the waiver quoted I understand the waiver has been applied for and is being looked at favourably."

The government stress that customer should always request a receipt and should there be any discrepancy contact the price control unit. This comes from a recent investigative piece done by media personnel Cherisse Halsall of Channel 7 News.

He goes on to state, "No I don't think we are giving duty exemptions as such but certainly we have removed I saw the last a couple of weeks ago the minister signed the statutory instrument (SI) to remove the G.S.T. that is within our control the G.S.T is our local Tax the import duty we would have to get a waiver from or an exemption of the quote head which is the arm of the Carom which deals with Caricom trade and taxes."