Gail Alexan­der

Peo­ple in up­per-class ar­eas would pay the high­est prop­er­ty tax­es, while those who re­ceived old age pen­sion would be ex­empt­ed from pay­ing the tax, PNM MP Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day. Speak­ing in yes­ter­day's Low­er House de­bate on Gov­ern­ment's prop­er­ty tax, Im­bert said un­der the bill peo­ple re­ceiv­ing old age pen­sions could have the tax de­ferred. He said they would ul­ti­mate­ly be ex­empt­ed since they might not have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to change their fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances ex­cept by win­ning a Lot­to or via a gift. Im­bert not­ed high tax­es which cur­rent­ly ob­tained in south­ern prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, he said, there would be re­duc­tions un­der the tax, in­clud­ing com­mer­cial prop­er­ties.

It would be prop­er­ty own­ers in up­per class ar­eas, such as Fair­ways "with pala­tial man­sions," who would pay high­er tax­es, he added. Im­bert said a per­son who rent­ed out a prop­er­ty for $15,000 to $20,000 month­ly would have to pay $7,000 to $8,000 an­nu­al­ly in tax­es. He said such peo­ple nor­mal­ly paid about $1,000. "Any­body who be­lieves those who earn more should pay more can­not be against this tax," Im­bert added. He list­ed sev­er­al ex­am­ples of how much tax some prop­er­ties in var­i­ous parts of T&T– from north to south – would have to pay:

1. a Cedar Dri­ve, Pleas­antville, prop­er­ty, now pay­ing $2,012 in tax, will in fu­ture have an­nu­al prop­er­ty tax of $712;

2. a Pleas­antville Cir­cu­lar prop­er­ty, with cur­rent tax of $1,728, will go to $585 an­nu­al­ly;

3. a Mt Mo­ri­ah Road, San Fer­nan­do, prop­er­ty pay­ing $4,800 will pay $1,600;

4. a three-bed­room Wood­brook house, rent­ing for $3,000 to $4,000 month­ly, will pay a tax of $1,166;

5. a Gas­par­il­lo house, rent­ing for $2,000, will pay $583 an­nu­al­ly;

6. a Point Fortin three-bed­room house, rent­ing for $1,500, will pay $437 an­nu­al­ly;

7. a Ma­yaro three-bed­room house, rent­ing for $800, will pay $180 an­nu­al­ly; and,

8. a Gand­hi Vil­lage house, rent­ing for $800, will pay less than $200 in tax.

Im­bert said build­ings would be val­ued in var­i­ous cat­e­gories – ex­ec­u­tive house, mod­ern, stan­dard, sub-stan­dard and shacks. The rental val­ue for a stan­dard house would be half the rental val­ue of an ex­ec­u­tive house, he said.

He said the tax con­tributed to one per cent of Gov­ern­ment's rev­enue earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty in 2010. He said he had lis­tened to "so much fool­ish­ness from the holi­er-than-thou sanc­ti­mo­nious hyp­ocrites on that side," re­gard­ing the bill. He not­ed UNC MPs Tim Gopeesingh and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had been part of the NAR in 1990 when a prop­er­ty tax law was im­ple­ment­ed. He said the UNC Gov­ern­ment nev­er changed that. "I didn't see any croc­o­dile tears or fuss about the tax then," Im­bert not­ed.