The Min­istry of Fi­nance’s amnesties for tax­es—in­clud­ing prop­er­ty tax—and NIS have been ex­tend­ed to March 31, 2025.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert MP says the amnesties have been suc­cess­ful in en­sur­ing col­lec­tions, and over­all com­pli­ance.

"We just ex­tend­ed the Tax and NIS Amnesties to March 31, 2025, in­clud­ing prop­er­ty tax. This will help SMEs who are cur­rent­ly un­able to ten­der to pro­vide goods and ser­vices to pub­lic bod­ies due to un­paid tax­es and NIS, pro­vid­ing them with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rec­ti­fy their sit­u­a­tion," the min­is­ter stat­ed in a post on X/Twit­ter.

Min­is­ter Im­bert al­so notes the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) will be­come ful­ly op­er­a­tional this year, and the coun­try at large has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come ful­ly com­pli­ant.

“The cur­rent Tax and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Amnesty will al­low tax­pay­ers to put their hous­es in or­der and to pay their out­stand­ing tax­es be­fore the TTRA is op­er­a­tional,” he said.

And an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by the Min­istry re­ports that as of Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 27, 2025, the Tax Amnesty had raised $2.38 bil­lion in rev­enue.

The Min­istry said com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, the cur­rent Tax Amnesty is now on par with the 2019 tax amnesty, which was the most suc­cess­ful tax amnesty grant­ed in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go in terms of col­lec­tions.

“It is now like­ly that the cur­rent 2024/2025 tax amnesty will ex­ceed the col­lec­tions in 2019,” the Min­istry said.

It al­so points out that un­der the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act, which was pro­claimed in 2023, Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (SMEs) which are not up to date with their tax and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance pay­ments face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in par­tic­i­pat­ing in pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings by Min­istries, Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties and State En­ter­pris­es.

In this re­gard, sec­tion 29(1)(c) of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Prop­er­ty Act is rel­e­vant:

“A procur­ing en­ti­ty shall en­sure that sup­pli­ers and con­trac­tors — have ful­filled their oblig­a­tions to pay all re­quired tax­es and con­tri­bu­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Min­istry’s re­lease ex­plained:

“Bear­ing the above in mind, both Reg­u­la­tion 4(3) of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Pre-Qual­i­fi­ca­tion and Pre-Se­lec­tion) Reg­u­la­tions and Reg­u­la­tion 10 of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Sim­pli­fied Pro­cure­ment) Reg­u­la­tions, whilst re­spec­tive­ly al­low­ing pay­ment plan agree­ments and a pe­ri­od of six months to set­tle out­stand­ing tax and na­tion­al in­sur­ance pay­ments, do not ab­solve SMEs from their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing cur­rent with tax and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance pay­ments.”

“Con­se­quent­ly, giv­en the vi­tal role of SMEs in em­ploy­ing peo­ple, con­tribut­ing to the gross do­mes­tic prod­uct, and sus­tain­ing eco­nom­ic growth, it has been con­sid­ered nec­es­sary to en­sure that SMEs can con­tin­ue par­tic­i­pat­ing in pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings by ex­tend­ing the Tax and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Amnesty,” the Min­istry said.

It added: “This would per­mit SMEs suf­fi­cient time to ad­dress out­stand­ing tax and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance oblig­a­tions.”