The pur­suit of the col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax­es in this coun­try has be­come one of the most tor­tu­ous pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives since the re­turn of the PNM to pow­er in 2015. Since 2015, Min­is­ter Im­bert has made ref­er­ence to the col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax­es every year in his an­nu­al Bud­get state­ment in Par­lia­ment. In his first bud­get in 2015, he said as fol­lows:

“We will take steps to amend cer­tain leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sions, in­clud­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of rates and im­ple­ment the ex­ist­ing Prop­er­ty Tax Act 2009, with a view to hav­ing a fair and eq­ui­table prop­er­ty tax regime in place by Jan­u­ary 1, 2016, us­ing the old lev­els and the old rates as a start­ing point.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Oc­to­ber 5, 2015, p 56).

That pro­pos­al was nev­er im­ple­ment­ed. The fol­low­ing year he said: “Prop­er­ty tax col­lec­tions will be ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed in 2017 based on the Prop­er­ty Tax Act, 2009, with mi­nor amend­ments to the Val­u­a­tion of Land Act.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Sep­tem­ber 30, 2016, p 71).

That did not come to pass in 2017. The fol­low­ing year he said, “In 2015, the pay­ment un­der the Prop­er­ty Tax Act was waived for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1, 2010 to Jan­u­ary 01, 2016. This means that ab­solute­ly no rev­enue was col­lect­ed from prop­er­ty own­ers for the pe­ri­od 2010 to 2015. With ur­gent need for ad­di­tion­al sources of rev­enue, par­tic­u­lar­ly from the non-oil sec­tor in or­der to main­tain the lev­el of goods and ser­vices pro­vid­ed by Gov­ern­ment and to con­tin­ue to pro­vide sub­si­dies where they are need­ed, we in­tend to have a ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed prop­er­ty tax sys­tem in 2018.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Oc­to­ber 2, 2017, pp 62-63).

The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment did not re­peal the Prop­er­ty Tax Act 2009 when they were in of­fice. In­stead, they waived the prop­er­ty tax­es for the pe­ri­od 2010-2015. That left the door open for the PNM to im­ple­ment the tax af­ter 2015. The fol­low­ing year Im­bert said,  “The cur­rent plan is for the Board of In­land Rev­enue to is­sue no­tices to prop­er­ty own­ers for the pay­ment of prop­er­ty tax in 2019. Let me as­sure this ho­n­ourable House and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that the prop­er­ty tax will not be re­quired to be paid on a retroac­tive ba­sis. The tax will on­ly be im­ple­ment­ed and col­lect­ed in re­spect of cal­en­dar 2019.” (Hansard, Oc­to­ber 1, 2018, p 24).

There was an un­der­tak­ing here that the tax would not be col­lect­ed retroac­tive­ly. The fol­low­ing year Im­bert said, “It is to be not­ed that the col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax for res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties is a fun­da­men­tal pil­lar of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form process so that mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions can be as­sured of a sus­tain­able rev­enue stream to fi­nance their de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Oc­to­ber 7, 2019, p 17).

Im­bert was now speak­ing about the in­tend­ed con­nec­tion be­tween prop­er­ty tax­es and lo­cal gov­ern­ment as lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form was en­ter­ing the pol­i­cy agen­da. The fol­low­ing year, he said:

“The ob­jec­tive is to com­mence the col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax in fis­cal 2021 start­ing with res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Oc­to­ber 5, 2020, p 39).

By this time, the Gov­ern­ment was in full COVID-19 mode, but Im­bert was press­ing on with the prop­er­ty tax agen­da with hopes of col­lec­tion in 2021. The fol­low­ing year he said,

“Madam Speak­er, we be­lieve that the re­sump­tion of the col­lec­tion of tax­es on prop­er­ty is long over­due and we en­vis­age [desk thump­ing] very im­por­tant­ly, we en­vis­age prop­er­ty tax col­lec­tion as a sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue item for lo­cal gov­ern­ment in the years ahead. [desk thump­ing]” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Oc­to­ber 5, 2020, p 35).

The mar­riage of prop­er­ty tax­es to lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form was now ce­ment­ed in­to the pol­i­cy agen­da. The fol­low­ing year, he said, “We are on track, Madam Speak­er, to com­mence col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax in fis­cal 2023.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Sep­tem­ber 26, 2022, p 28).

The im­ple­men­ta­tion of the prop­er­ty tax regime did not com­mence in 2023. How­ev­er, in his bud­get state­ment last Mon­day, he said, “In this con­text, I wish to ad­vise that the col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax­es will be ef­fec­tive in the fi­nan­cial year 2024.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Oc­to­ber 2, 2023, p 24).

It has been a long and tor­tu­ous road for Min­is­ter Im­bert. He has stayed the course on this sin­gle pol­i­cy item with­out im­ple­men­ta­tion. Will it come to pass in 2024?

Prof Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.