The 2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get, pre­sent­ed against the back­drop of a pro­ject­ed $3.65 bil­lion fis­cal deficit and mount­ing de­mand for so­cial ser­vices, in­tro­duced a mix of new tax­es, struc­tur­al re­forms, and tar­get­ted in­vest­ments in key sec­tors such as agri­cul­ture, hous­ing and tourism. 

While in the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day, per­son­al in­come tax rates re­main un­changed; the gov­ern­ment has leaned heav­i­ly on new levies and con­tri­bu­tion in­creas­es to bol­ster rev­enue. 

Speak­ing with Busi­ness Guardian on Mon­day evening, EY Caribbean tax part­ner Col­in Ram­sey pro­vid­ed analy­sis of the bud­get’s core mea­sures.

Ram­sey be­gan by high­light­ing the fis­cal con­text of a deficit re­duced from the $9 bil­lion flagged ear­li­er this year. 

Against that back­drop, he said it was ex­pect­ed that the gov­ern­ment would in­tro­duce sev­er­al mea­sures to raise rev­enue and man­age ex­pen­di­ture, even if not all would be equal­ly wel­comed.

One of the more no­table as­pects of the bud­get, he said, is that there were no in­creas­es in per­son­al in­come tax rates, which is a re­lief for salaried work­ers al­ready man­ag­ing tight bud­gets. In­stead, the gov­ern­ment opt­ed for new tax­es and levies across sec­tors, in­clud­ing a new as­set levy tar­get­ting banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, along with a land­lord busi­ness sur­charge and an in­crease in NIS con­tri­bu­tions. 

New as­set levy

Ram­sey not­ed that the new levy was in­tro­duced at 0.25 per cent of the as­sets of com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in T&T. The levy mir­rors sim­i­lar mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries such as Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos.  He stressed, how­ev­er, that its ac­tu­al im­pact will de­pend on im­ple­men­ta­tion de­tails, such as how the as­set base is de­fined, whether de­duc­tions are al­lowed, and how fre­quent­ly pay­ments are due.
“This is def­i­nite­ly a key mea­sure to watch,” Ram­sey said. “Par­tic­u­lar­ly for banks and in­sur­ers, the fine print will mat­ter. Whether the tax is de­ductible, and how it’s sched­uled for pay­ment quar­ter­ly or an­nu­al­ly could af­fect fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions’ prof­itabil­i­ty and will­ing­ness to lend.” 

NIS Con­tri­bu­tions to Rise 

An­oth­er im­pact­ful mea­sure is the in­crease in Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme (NIS) con­tri­bu­tions, which will rise by three per cent in 2026 and an­oth­er three per cent in 2027. While this will in­crease costs for both em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees, Ram­sey point­ed out that em­ploy­er con­tri­bu­tions are ful­ly de­ductible for tax pur­pos­es, while em­ploy­ees al­ready re­ceive some tax re­lief on their NIS pay­ments. 

“Still,” he said, “a high­er con­tri­bu­tion means re­duced dis­pos­able in­come. Al­though the in­crease is phased, it will be felt, es­pe­cial­ly if the de­ductible lim­its for pay­roll tax­es are not ad­just­ed to match the new rates.” 

Land­lord sur­charge 

The land­lord busi­ness sur­charge, which was an­nounced in the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion is al­so like­ly to stir de­bate. Ram­sey ex­plained that the sur­charge ap­pears to func­tion as a sub­sti­tute for prop­er­ty tax, with rates start­ing at 2.5 per cent and ris­ing to 3.5 per cent for land­lords earn­ing more than $20,000 an­nu­al­ly in rent.  

He not­ed that while this move gen­er­ates rev­enue, its broad­er im­pact de­pends on whether land­lords pass the cost on to ten­ants.  
“There are con­cerns about how this will play out,” he said. “Much will hinge on whether leg­is­la­tion pre­vents land­lords from trans­fer­ring the bur­den to renters. Oth­er­wise, ten­ants could be the ones foot­ing the bill.” 

Fu­el price drop brings re­lief 

Amid the rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures, there were some cost-sav­ing poli­cies that ben­e­fit the wider pop­u­la­tion.  Most no­table is the $1 de­crease in the price of su­per gaso­line, which took ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly. Ram­sey ac­knowl­edged this move will be wel­comed by many house­holds and is un­like­ly to strain gov­ern­ment fi­nances, giv­en that glob­al oil prices re­main rel­a­tive­ly low.

“The sav­ings at the pump, while mod­est, are mean­ing­ful for those al­ready stretched. It’s a prac­ti­cal move, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the Gov­ern­ment’s push to re­duce sub­si­dies over the years,” he said.

Dis­band­ing CEPEP and URP

The dis­band­ment of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme Com­pa­ny Ltd (CEPEP) and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), two long-stand­ing em­ploy­ment sup­port pro­grammes, was an­oth­er bold and con­tro­ver­sial el­e­ment of the bud­get. Ram­sey ac­knowl­edged pub­lic con­cern, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the num­ber of peo­ple de­pend­ing on these pro­grammes for ba­sic em­ploy­ment. 
“These ini­tia­tives sup­port­ed some of the most vul­ner­a­ble,” he said. “The gov­ern­ment’s chal­lenge now is to roll out its re­place­ment strat­e­gy quick­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly, cre­at­ing jobs that are more sus­tain­able and pro­vide long-term sta­bil­i­ty.” 

While the bud­get promised to redi­rect funds to­ward a job cre­ation pro­gramme, the risk re­mains that de­lays could leave many with­out sup­port in the in­ter­im. 

Pub­lic ser­vants’ 10 per cent In­crease. 

The long-promised 10 per cent salary in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, along with back pay, was al­so con­firmed.  While this is a wel­come de­vel­op­ment for work­ers, Ram­sey not­ed it does place ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on the wage bill.  

“It’s a ma­jor re­cur­ring cost,” he said. “How­ev­er, with the Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duc­ing var­i­ous new rev­enue mea­sures, and en­hanc­ing tax en­force­ment, es­pe­cial­ly through trans­fer pric­ing and strength­en­ing the tax au­thor­i­ties, they’re hop­ing to bal­ance it out.”

Strength­en­ing tax en­force­ment

Ram­sey em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing of the Board of In­land Rev­enue and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion. More staff, bet­ter train­ing, and mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy could im­prove com­pli­ance and in­crease col­lec­tions, es­pe­cial­ly from sec­tors that have his­tor­i­cal­ly flown un­der the radar.

“Rev­enue en­force­ment will need to be a key part of the strat­e­gy. There’s un­tapped rev­enue sit­ting in weak com­pli­ance sys­tems. Fix­ing that could give the Gov­ern­ment more breath­ing room,” he added.

Sup­port for To­ba­go

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly re­ceived $2.96 bil­lion. The Fi­nance Min­is­ter said a fur­ther $763 mil­lion will al­so be spent by var­i­ous min­istries on To­ba­go.  In to­tal, then, the al­lo­ca­tion to To­ba­go for fis­cal 2026 will be $3.724 bil­lion, which equates to 6.3 per cent of the Na­tion­al Bud­get. Ram­sey saw the in­creased fund­ing as a pos­i­tive step. The is­land re­ceived more than usu­al in this bud­get, and the THA lead­er­ship has re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly.  

“To­ba­go has huge po­ten­tial,” Ram­sey said. “Bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture and eco­nom­ic sup­port there could feed in­to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly if aligned with tourism and small busi­ness growth.” 

Fo­cus on Tourism and Agri­cul­ture

The bud­get con­tained some sup­port for tourism, par­tic­u­lar­ly through re­fur­bish­ment projects and ho­tel in­vest­ments. How­ev­er, Ram­sey be­lieves the sec­tor still needs more ded­i­cat­ed fo­cus, giv­en its po­ten­tial as a pil­lar in the coun­try’s di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts.
“There’s more that can be done,” he said. “Tourism, es­pe­cial­ly when in­te­grat­ed with the or­ange econ­o­my and cre­ative in­dus­tries, can be­come a re­al dri­ver of jobs and for­eign ex­change.”

He was more op­ti­mistic about the push for agri­cul­ture, not­ing that the sec­tor re­ceived a larg­er bud­get al­lo­ca­tion and ex­pand­ed tax in­cen­tives. “There’s al­ready a suite of agri­cul­tur­al tax ben­e­fits, and now with more in­puts be­ing ze­ro-rat­ed, the aim is clear­ly to re­duce our mas­sive $7 bil­lion food im­port bill,” he said. “Lo­cal pro­duc­tion has to in­crease, and this bud­get makes a mean­ing­ful at­tempt to sup­port that.”
Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment and First-Time Grants Ram­sey al­so wel­comed the gov­ern­ment’s pledge to pro­vide 20,000 af­ford­able homes, with sup­port from pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships and in­no­v­a­tive con­struc­tion meth­ods.  A first-time home­own­er’s grant is al­so be­ing launched to ease ac­cess.   “There are al­ready strong tax in­cen­tives in place, stamp du­ty re­lief and in­come tax de­duc­tions for first-time buy­ers,” he said. “For de­vel­op­ers of low-cost hous­ing, there are tax ex­emp­tions too. With the right poli­cies and part­ner­ships, this hous­ing tar­get is achiev­able.”
Spe­cial Needs Ed­u­ca­tion Sup­port
Fi­nal­ly, Ram­sey ex­pressed strong sup­port for the an­nounced in­crease in sup­port for ed­u­ca­tion ser­vices for chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties. “This is long over­due,” he said. “In­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion is es­sen­tial to build­ing an eq­ui­table so­ci­ety. The pri­vate sec­tor al­so has a role to play, but gov­ern­ment lead­er­ship is crit­i­cal.”

A bud­get of trade-offs

In clos­ing, Ram­sey de­scribed the 2026 bud­get as one of trade-offs, bal­anc­ing rev­enue needs with so­cial in­vest­ments and at­tempt­ing to spread the load across sec­tors rather than just in­di­vid­u­als. While there are bur­dens to bear, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the form of high­er con­tri­bu­tions and new levies, the bud­get al­so of­fers re­lief and op­por­tu­ni­ty if its pro­grammes are im­ple­ment­ed ef­fi­cient­ly. 

Whether the in­tend­ed out­comes are achieved will de­pend heav­i­ly on ex­e­cu­tion.

“The ideas are sound,” Ram­sey con­clud­ed. “But what mat­ters most is how quick­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly they’re put in­to ac­tion.