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38 39 are the spendingministries.So,basically,the biggest challenge is tomaintain the expenditures and spend- ing of mycolleagues,within the financial frameworkof the annual budgets. “At the same time,we are primed to optimize the in- come side of the budget.I must say that both the Cus- toms Department and theTaxDepartment are lacking some necessaryand important tools andmeans to operate efficiently.First of all,theTaxDepartment is workingwith some obsolete and archaic legislation– most of the levies date from1908,whichmeans that these laws aremore than 100 years old and difficult to execute.At the same time,what you see is that the contributors have problems with theway that theyare executed,whichmeans that theyappeal quite often, which cause backlogs in the collection of the levies. “So,one of mymajor challenges is working on total tax reformand trying to come upwith awhole pack- age of tax legislation.Wewant to simplify the levies; wewant to reduce the number of levies and,at the same time,wewould like to shift them fromdirect to indirect taxation,whichmeans wewill have less administrative burdens for businesses,particularly,and a broader basis for the levies wewould like tomain- tain in practice.It will createmore legal certainties,less appeals,less disputes,less rebates on levies. “Wewant to simplifyandmodernize the income tax, thewage tax (an advance levyon personal income, i.e.awithholding taxpaid byan employer),the sales tax,and the corporate profit tax.Bydoing that,we are trying to optimize theway the levies are operating.And we’re trying to boost compliance,overall,so that we don’t have to introduce higher rates or more levies.We can collect,in a better way,the income that we should THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE – ARUBA be collecting.And it’s the same for Customs,whose decree also dates from1908,so it’s quite archaic.We will be replacing it with a totally revamped and remo- bilized legislation for import duties.” In regard to balancing the country’s budget,Bermu- dez reported that,in 2014,the country ran a deficit of 9.3 percent of GDP,but amoremanageable 3.7 percent,the following fiscal year.Projections for the en- suing years hadAruba running a 0.5 percent deficit by 2017,with the expectation that, by 2018, there would be no more deficits, only surpluses, and the Treasury would have the means to start amortizing its debt. In addition, although projections for Aruba’s tour- ism sector,which accounts for three quarters of the country’s GDP,were positive, Bermudez remarked that diversifying the economy was a necessary objective: “We are all aware that if you’re building your economy on only one pillar, it’s quite volatile. Till 2009,when the refinery was still operating, that was the second leg on which our economy was resting.Now, indeed,we are only building on tour- ism and it forces us to think about diversification and alternatives.As we don’t have natural resources,we have to thinkout of the boxand that’s why in the tax legislation that we aremodernizing,we are also trying to introduce some incentives to stimulate‘smart econ- omies,’whichmeans wewould like to be facilitating themodern activities with regard to the digital world, the internet business ,etc.in order to have niches in our economy in addition to tourism.So,we are striving to attain a sustainable national debt,we aremanaging and administering our publicfinances,andwe are modernizing our legislation and levies in away that includes facilities for neweconomical activities.” In the 2017general election, held on September 22, Prime Minister Eman’s Aruban People’s Party (AVP) lost four of its thirteen seats in the Estates of Aruba, and Eman subsequently announced that he would resign the leadership of the AVP and that he would not take up a seat in the new Estates.Minis- ter Bermudez said that he wants to retire again by the end of 2017.