President of the Supermarkets Association of T&T (Satt), Dr Yunus Ibrahim, says members have been working feverishly over the last two weeks to get their businesses ready for when the revised VAT (Value Added Tax) system comes into effect tomorrow.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian on Friday, Ibrahim said: "Since the release of the VAT implementation date supermarket owners have been working late to achieve this goal and have been preparing themselves beforehand.
"This entails training employees, working with computerised and non-computerised systems, at the very least ensuring the cash register will have the 12.5 per cent VAT.
"With respect to price tagging items, some people are doing it after hours on Sunday and into the morning on Monday and others will be doing it throughout the day."
He said in regards to readiness, the association's members were poised to pull it off.
Ibrahim said, however, this time around it was not as simple as in the past where VAT was removed from certain products.
He said now members had to do a double exercise, add VAT to returning items and reduce VAT from 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent on other items.
Ibrahim said it was not the simplest of challenges, since they had to effect changes at the cash register and on the shelves.
Ibrahim said he could not give a cost for the VAT exercise as it varied from supermarket to supermarket based on the size of the individual operation.
He said the association's role at this stage was just compliance and this was key to the whole operation in order for consumers to reap the benefits.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced that approximately 99 food items were removed from the Value Added Tax (VAT) zero-rated list and would be subject to the 12.5 per cent VAT rate from tomorrow.
Among the items removed from the VAT zero-rated list are rice (except parboiled and brown rice), flour (except all purpose and wheat flour), milk including processed and tinned milk, UHT milk, condensed milk, flavoured and unflavoured milk and milk substitutes whether or not from animal origin, cream and creamers, bread (except white and whole wheat bread), cheese and curd (except cheddar cheese and rennet free cheese), fresh butter, peanut butter, table salt, salted butter, coffee, orange juice, mauby, tunas, tomato ketchup, biscuits, dairy spreads, yogurt and tea (whether flavoured or unflavoured, including herbal teas).
Items which remain on the VAT zero-rated list include baby milk and baby milk substitutes, corned beef, sardines, smoked herring, oatmeal, curry, toilet paper, yeast, baking powder, uncooked or unstuffed pasta and brown sugar.
Hardware Dealers concerned about Business Levy, Green Fund Levy, property tax
President of the Hardware Dealers Cooperative Society Ltd Pradeep Pooran said adjusting for a reduction in VAT was not a major problem and its members could work with that by passing on savings to customers.
He said that was the easy part.
However, they had three major concerns–the increase in the Business Levy, the Green Fund Levy and the property tax.
Pooran said there were small, medium and large hardware stores, with some being family-operated hardwares where the owners also lived on the premises.
He said he was not sure which payment bracket they would fall into, that is, whether they would be paying residential, commercial or residential/commercial rates.
Pooran said the increase in these taxes coupled with import and manufacturing costs might lead to some upward adjustment in prices to offset costs which again would have be passed on to customers, which would make construction projects more challenging.
San Juan Business
Association: Consumers
must benefit
Public Relations Officer of the San Juan Business Association, Abrahim Ali, said all business people would be geared up to implement the VAT change effective tomorrow.
He said the price adjustments would be done over the weekend which would require some of the computers to be reorganised and some of the goods to be repriced.
Ali, a former president of the association, said what he would like to see as a businessman and PRO of the chamber was the effective introduction of savings from reduction of the 15 per cent VAT to 12.5 per cent VAT.
He said he was hearing from some people on the ground that goods were going up and consumers wouldn't see a change.
Ali said to him that was not true because items such as hardware products like cement and blocks and other items that attracted 15 per cent VAT were now going to be reduced to 12.5 per cent VAT.
He said the association wanted to see consumers benefiting from this as well.
Ali said it was not just that the zero-rated items would now have VAT but some items would also be reduced.
He said he was calling on all members to make sure that savings were passed on to consumers.
Ali said with a downturn in the economy, the association's members wanted to do what they could to encourage people to continue buying their goods, building their homes and seeing about what was necessary.
TTMA: It's not causing
any significant problems
T&T Manufacturers' Association (TTMA) President Dr Rolph Balgobin said a tax change was not something that would cause a lot of members any significant problems.
He said adequate notice had been given, though it would still involve a lot of hard work, especially if companies had many products or lines to adjust price codes on and to input into their systems. Balgobin said the association did not have any members expressing a concern or problem.
They accepted it as a state of play, taxes changed over time, therefore they must make the appropriate adjustments.