The prop­er­ty of tax de­fault­ers will be for­feit­ed in one year if the new Land and Build­ing Tax­es Act be­ing put for­ward by the Gov­ern­ment is im­ple­ment­ed. Old age pen­sion­ers, the vul­ner­a­ble and earn­ers of fixed in­comes will al­so be hard hit in ad­di­tion. Cit­i­zens will pay "sig­nif­i­cant­ly more" land and build­ing tax­es if the new rate-7.5 per cent-on the an­nu­al rental val­ue is ap­plied.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter, Karen Tesheira said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship must tell the na­tion if the as­sess­ment is to be based on the 2008 rate or cur­rent up­dat­ed val­u­a­tion of 7.5 per cent. Tesheira said if the 2008 val­u­a­tion was to be ap­plied, cit­i­zens would have to pay the rate that ob­tained then. If they are go­ing to use the up­dat­ed val­u­a­tions-which they have pro­vid­ed for in the Val­u­a­tions Act and al­so in the Lands and Build­ing Tax­es Act-how­ev­er, peo­ple are go­ing to be pay­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly more tax­es.

Giv­ing an ex­am­ple, Tesheira said the tax paid on a $20,000 prop­er­ty un­der the 2008 val­u­a­tion would have been just over $100, while the own­er of the same prop­er­ty now val­ued at $300,000 would have to pay an es­ti­mat­ed $2,800 in tax­es, at the up­dat­ed rat­ed. "The Gov­ern­ment has to tell the na­tion about the ef­fect of the leg­is­la­tion," Tesheira added. The Lands and Build­ing Tax­es Act, to be pre­sent­ed for de­bate by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, she not­ed, re­moves the ex­emp­tion grant­ed to old age pen­sion­ers and earn­ers of fixed in­come. "So there is no pro­vi­sion for ex­emp­tion of tax­es for cat­e­gories of per­sons who are in cer­tain fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tions," she added. Un­der the PNM's Prop­er­ty Tax, this group of peo­ple were ex­empt­ed from the tax­es.

Tesheira re­vealed that in the for­mer Prop­er­ty Tax Act, the prop­er­ty of cit­i­zens in de­fault of pay­ing the tax would have been for­feit­ed with­in a pe­ri­od of five years. In the PP Bill, de­fault­ers would lose their prop­er­ty in 12 months. While the Gov­ern­ment is claim­ing the Bill was the same as what ex­ist­ed be­fore the Prop­er­ty Tax was passed in 2009, Tesheira said if the new Bill would lead to in­crease tax­es, then it would not be the same. "It can­not be the same if I am not pay­ing the same thing," she stressed. She said the new leg­is­la­tion al­so gives Dook­er­an the au­thor­i­ty to in­crease the rate for res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty by Or­der to ten per cent. Last week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar deny­ing this, said: "No, no, not true. In fact, we have ap­proved a Bill that will re­peal the Act that was passed by the last ad­min­is­tra­tion. So that is to­tal­ly false, to­tal­ly false."