DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The op­po­si­tion is ac­cus­ing the gov­ern­ment of covert­ly at­tempt­ing to grant the Fi­nance Min­is­ter ac­cess to in­di­vid­u­als' pri­vate tax in­for­ma­tion—an al­le­ga­tion that the rul­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion firm­ly de­nies. 

The con­cern was raised dur­ing the first sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day as Par­lia­ment re­con­vened for the fifth and fi­nal ses­sion of its 12th term. 

First on the par­lia­men­tary agen­da was the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Glob­al Fo­rum) Bill, aimed at re­mov­ing the coun­try from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es.  

How­ev­er, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Barataria/San Juan, Sad­dam Ho­sein, raised con­cerns about Clause 13, which amends Sec­tions 5 and 9(1) of the Tax In­for­ma­tion Ex­change Agree­ments (Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca) Act (Act No. 4 of 2017).  

This clause re­moves the cur­rent de­f­i­n­i­tion of "com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty" and re­places it with a new de­f­i­n­i­tion, plac­ing the au­thor­i­ty un­der the con­trol of the Min­istry of Fi­nance or their au­tho­rised rep­re­sen­ta­tive, rather than the pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR). 

Clause 15(a) fur­ther amends the Tax In­for­ma­tion Ex­change Agree­ments Act (Act No. 5 of 2020) by re­vis­ing Sec­tion 3 to de­fine "com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty" as the min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for fi­nance or their au­tho­rised rep­re­sen­ta­tive. 

“So, if you have to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion, madame speak­er, that means the min­is­ter will be privy to tax­pay­ers' in­for­ma­tion. That is the dan­ger of this thing. So, he can re­quest in­for­ma­tion and al­so see in­for­ma­tion that is re­quest­ed. This is the dan­ger in this bill. This means any per­son/min­is­ter sit­ting as ‘com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty’ un­der the tax ex­change agree­ments can re­quest in­for­ma­tion,” Ho­sein said. 

The op­po­si­tion MP al­so crit­i­cised Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for propos­ing the amend­ment to re­as­sign the de­f­i­n­i­tion of "com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty" to the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, de­spite hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly agreed to keep it un­der the BIR when the leg­is­la­tion was re­viewed by a joint se­lect com­mit­tee in 2017. He al­so warned of the po­ten­tial for cor­rup­tion if the fi­nance min­is­ter wields such pow­er.  

Ho­sein com­pared T&T to oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions, say­ing the gov­ern­ment should not sug­gest that this amend­ment was rec­om­mend­ed by the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment. He said Cana­da, Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca and Ja­maica all have their “com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty” placed un­der their re­spec­tive tax col­lec­tion agency.  

San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi hit back at Ho­sein, rub­bish­ing his sug­ges­tion that there was a se­cret at­tempt to grant the fi­nance min­is­ter ac­cess to peo­ple’s pri­vate tax in­for­ma­tion.  

“To an­swer the al­le­ga­tion from Barataria/San Juan, the min­is­ter of fi­nance still op­er­ates with­in the con­fines of the law, that is Act 5 of 2020 and the min­is­ter of fi­nance has no usurpa­tion of au­thor­i­ty from the Board of In­land Rev­enue. There is a wall leg­isla­tive­ly con­struct­ed in this act. The con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion re­sides with the board of in­land rev­enue, it does not go to the min­is­ter of fi­nance.”  

He al­so ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of drag­ging its feet, which he said de­layed the pas­sage of the leg­is­la­tion for years.

When she joined the de­bate, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) would sup­port the pro­posed amend­ments to the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill in the Low­er House, pro­vid­ed that changes are made in the Sen­ate.

How­ev­er, she con­demned what she con­sid­ered to be the gov­ern­ment's rush to push the suite of leg­is­la­tion, lament­ing that the op­po­si­tion re­ceived 119 pages of the Bill on Wednes­day. She said they were "blind­sided" but as­sured they were not un­pre­pared.

Among her oth­er con­cerns was the pro­pos­al to des­ig­nate the Fi­nance Min­is­ter as the "com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty." She al­so ex­pressed dis­may at the pro­longed black­list­ing, stat­ing, “I want us off that black­list. I think every­one in the coun­try wants us off that black­list. Since 2017, T&T has been on a black­list. This is very dan­ger­ous, very shame­ful, and very dis­grace­ful.”

Trinidad and To­ba­go is one of 12 coun­tries list­ed as non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es by The Glob­al Fo­rum.

Fol­low­ing a de­tailed clause-by-clause as­sess­ment in the com­mit­tee of the whole, Par­lia­ment ad­journed the bill, now amend­ed, for re­port­ing to the House.