Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is due to re­spond to the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill that was read in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. Here are 5 key things to note.

"Madam Speak­er, as a fis­cal stim­u­lus to the econ­o­my and a fil­lip to the re­tail sec­tor we are pro­vid­ing re­lief to work­ing fam­i­lies by in­creas­ing the per­son­al in­come tax ex­emp­tion lim­it from $84,000 to $90,000 per year.

A tax amnesty will kick in on No­vem­ber 14 and run for three months. Here is a re­cap of this mea­sure, an­nounced in Mon­day's Bud­get.

The state-owned en­ti­ty that man­ages the coun­try’s school nu­tri­tion pro­gramme has re­ceived its largest bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion in at least tenyears.

Bud­get 2023 doc­u­ments which deal with charges on ac­count of the pub­lic debt in­clude es­ti­mates of funds for the Cli­co/British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad Ltd BAT) debt which T&T owes.

In many ways, the bud­get is noth­ing more than a po­lit­i­cal doc­u­ment. It is a state­ment of in­tent by the gov­ern­ment of the day on how it is go­ing to spend mon­ey over the 12-month fis­cal year, and how it in­tends to raise rev­enue to pay for its ex­pen­di­ture.

The price at the pump has in­creased, but from Jan­u­ary the per­son­al in­come tax ex­emp­tion will al­so rise.

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Far­ley Au­gus­tine is call­ing for for­eign trav­ellers to pay the true cost to fly be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Az­im Bas­sarath, pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB), is prais­ing the gov­ern­ment for its al­lo­ca­tion to sports in Mon­day's read­ing of the Na­tion­al Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) will make a fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion on the re­view of wa­ter rates by No­vem­ber 2023.

The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties will pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter sub­si­dies for 13,000 low-in­come cus­tomers in 2023.

Busi­ness mag­nate Arthur Lok Jack yes­ter­day called out Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for crip­pling this coun­try’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor with its slow pace in pay­ing out­stand­ing Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) re­funds.

The re­spec­tive al­lo­ca­tions for the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions for the next fis­cal year in­clude large sums—up to a max­i­mum of $10m in some cas­es—for cor­po­ra­tions to han­dle road and bridge re­pair work.

The an­nounce­ment that se­nior cit­i­zens will no longer trav­el for free on the in­ter-is­land fer­ry be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go has come as a shock among se­nior cit­i­zens, who are al­so see­ing it as a form of dis­re­spect by the Gov­ern­ment.

Al­though hav­ing to pay an ad­di­tion­al dol­lar or 50 cents per litre for Su­per and Pre­mi­um gaso­line or diesel will heav­i­ly im­pact the prof­its of taxi dri­vers, many of them say they will not seek to take it back from the pock­ets of their pas­sen­gers, es­pe­cial­ly at this time.

Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get says the 2023 Na­tion­al Bud­get was an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the Gov­ern­ment im­pos­ing hard­ship on the pop­u­la­tion.Ad­dress­ing the OW­TU and Cred­it Union League’s Peo­ple Sec­tor Post-Bud­get Fo­rum on Tues­day, Ro­get said Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert at­tempt­ed a spin job to dupe peo­ple in­to think­ing the pro­posed fis­cal poli­cies were good for the coun­try.