Government has no intention of implementing the Property Tax and will seek to extend the amnesty if it is returned to power next month.
This is according to Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai who told yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference that matter was “not a priority” for the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Government.
The tax was made law in 2009 under the former Patrick Manning government. Howai said since the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Government assumed office in 2010, the Government on an annual basis was “simply extending the amnesty in order to allow us to waive the requirement (to pay the tax) because the tax is on the books.”
Howai said the last extension for the tax not to be paid expires at on December 31.
He said providing the Government won next month’s election it would “put a new amnesty in place” during the 2016 national budget debate.
He said the current amnesty was put in place “in the last budget or the one before and I think in 2011 we may have had to do it retroactively.”
He further explained that “what we do each year is, as we read the budget we say we will extend the amnesty for the period of time that we think we need in order that whatever policy decision that needs to be made could be effected.”
Asked if there were any plan to amend or repeal the Property Tax, Howai said: “Cabinet has had no discussion on the matter in the last two years.”
He said he would have to return to the Cabinet “to determine a time frame within which that could be dealt with.”
He said: “This has been an interim type of position where each year we simply defer and create a further amnesty for individuals. We need to dispose of it (Property Tax) in a final way at some stage.”
He admitted he told Parliament previously he would be moving to have the tax re-introduced for industrial and then commercial customers and ultimately agricultural and residential customers.
Howai said subsequently there were stakeholder consultations with the business community on the matter.
He said the consultations indicated that such a move to implement the tax in the proposed matter “could potentially impact on investments and after we evaluated the feedback we decided that we are not proceeding with it in the way that I had originally indicated.”
He insisted, however, that Cabinet “has to make a decision” on the issue of the Property Tax. (RL)