DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin has moved to al­lay con­cerns among lo­cal artistes, say­ing dis­cus­sions about pos­si­ble tax­a­tion re­main ex­plorato­ry and are far from be­com­ing gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) head­quar­ters on Tues­day, Ben­jamin said her pri­or­i­ty since as­sum­ing of­fice has been to im­prove earn­ings for artistes, not to im­pose ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial bur­dens.

“I know that is still a con­ver­sa­tion, and my of­fice re­mains open. From day one, I start­ed meet­ing with artistes, and my main goal has been to en­sure that artistes earn more. As far as I un­der­stand, this is mere­ly a con­ver­sa­tion and is far from im­ple­men­ta­tion,” she said.

Her com­ments fol­low a Jan­u­ary 12 ad­vi­so­ry is­sued by the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, re­mind­ing pro­mot­ers, band­lead­ers, and lo­cal and for­eign artistes of their tax oblig­a­tions for the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son. The IRD al­so in­di­cat­ed that it would be con­duct­ing field vis­its to en­sure com­pli­ance.

In a state­ment, the IRD said pro­mot­ers earn­ing gross re­ceipts of $600,000 or more as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, are re­quired to reg­is­ter for Val­ue Added Tax (VAT). Pro­mot­ers are al­so ob­lig­at­ed to pay in­come tax, cor­po­ra­tion tax and the Green Fund levy, deduct and re­mit with­hold­ing tax for for­eign artistes, and sub­mit the re­quired tax re­turns.

Sim­i­lar oblig­a­tions ap­ply to band­lead­ers, in­clud­ing VAT reg­is­tra­tion once the $600,000 thresh­old is reached, al­though no spe­cif­ic time­line for com­pli­ance was out­lined.

Lo­cal artistes are re­quired to pay health sur­charge and in­come tax and sub­mit re­turns, while for­eign artistes are sub­ject to with­hold­ing tax, to be de­duct­ed and re­mit­ted by pro­mot­ers.

Re­act­ing to the ad­vi­so­ry, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Ains­ley King said the mat­ter would be ad­dressed af­ter Car­ni­val 2026.

Car­ni­val 2026 “big­ger than ever”

Mean­while, Ben­jamin said Car­ni­val 2026 is shap­ing up to be the largest in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry, cit­ing full ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy, ris­ing vis­i­tor num­bers and record at­ten­dance at ma­jor events.

Speak­ing at the same me­dia con­fer­ence, she said ac­com­mo­da­tion across the coun­try is ful­ly booked, with more than 37,000 vis­i­tors al­ready record­ed. She urged the pub­lic to as­sess the sea­son based on da­ta rather than per­cep­tion.

“All re­ports and in­di­ca­tions show that ho­tels are ful­ly booked, and there are peo­ple who can­not se­cure ac­com­mo­da­tion at this time. Trinidad and To­ba­go, I am ask­ing you to look at the big­ger pic­ture. Our Car­ni­val has im­proved. Cul­ture works. In­vest­ment works, when gov­ern­ment puts mon­ey in­to its peo­ple,” she said.

Ben­jamin said the gov­ern­ment’s $137 mil­lion in­vest­ment in Car­ni­val has pro­duced mea­sur­able re­turns, in­clud­ing em­ploy­ment and strong com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

“So far, we have di­rect­ly em­ployed 847 peo­ple through short-term em­ploy­ment. Around the Sa­van­nah, over 211 ven­dors have been em­pow­ered. More than 150,000 pa­trons have at­tend­ed Fla­va thus far, and we are nowhere near the end of the sea­son,” she said.

She not­ed that Fire Ser­vice records showed that on­ly 74,000 pa­trons at­tend­ed Sa­van­nah events for the en­tire sea­son in pre­vi­ous years.

Re­spond­ing to claims made in the Sen­ate that Car­ni­val had lost mo­men­tum, Ben­jamin dis­missed sug­ges­tions that the sea­son was sub­dued.

“I want to tell my col­league who stood in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Mr Faris Al-Rawi, and said that Car­ni­val is sub­dued, that Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val is not sub­dued. It is a bumper Car­ni­val by all mea­sures. The proof is in the num­bers,” she said.

Ben­jamin said Fla­va Vil­lage record­ed its high­est sin­gle-night at­ten­dance on Jan­u­ary 24, when more than 13,000 pa­trons were present. The night be­fore, Jan­u­ary 23, drew 11,600 pa­trons, ac­cord­ing to fig­ures from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice. She added that de­mand re­mains strong, with ven­dors al­ready seek­ing booth space for next year.

She al­so high­light­ed growth in re­gion­al cel­e­bra­tions, not­ing that the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage has at­tract­ed 45,000 pa­trons so far—an 18 per cent in­crease over last year.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, gov­ern­ment sup­port has been ex­tend­ed to 32 re­gion­al car­ni­val com­mit­tees, with ad­di­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty groups still un­der re­view. In Port-of-Spain alone, she said Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment for more than 2,000 peo­ple, ex­clud­ing re­gion­al events.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns over the ab­sence of judg­ing in San Fer­nan­do this year, Ben­jamin said re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tors are free to pe­ti­tion the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) for fund­ing to fa­cil­i­tate judg­ing.

“The min­istry and the NCC stand ready. My en­tire fam­i­ly plays J’ou­vert in San Fer­nan­do, and the judg­ing will go on with­out the city. If the city cor­po­ra­tion is not ready to run the peo­ple’s Car­ni­val, the peo­ple will run their Car­ni­val,” she said.

San Fer­nan­do May­or and chair­man of the city’s Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, Robert Par­ris, said the city re­quires at least $1 mil­lion to stage Car­ni­val, ar­gu­ing that the $700,000 pre­vi­ous­ly al­lo­cat­ed has long been in­ad­e­quate. He said poor fi­nan­cial man­age­ment by past ad­min­is­tra­tions con­tributed to mount­ing debt.

“In the past, no au­dit­ed fig­ures were pre­sent­ed, and for a few years the NCC gave the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee less mon­ey. That is what drove us in­to debt,” Par­ris said.

He re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions of a dis­pute with the cul­ture min­is­ter but said he re­mained con­cerned about out­stand­ing pay­ments to ven­dors.

“I am tak­en aback by what the min­is­ter is say­ing,” he said, adding that he ob­ject­ed to the in­volve­ment of Al­der­man Vil­iana Ra­moutars­ingh in dis­cus­sions on the mat­ter.

“Al­der­man Ra­moutars­ingh has noth­ing to do with Car­ni­val in the city,” he said.

Par­ris said stake­hold­ers met on Mon­day and agreed to for­go the com­pet­i­tive as­pect of Car­ni­val this year, stress­ing that the de­ci­sion was made by stake­hold­ers, not the com­mit­tee.

“All we are say­ing is that we are the sec­ond city. Come and speak to us or come and see why we are say­ing $700,000 is not enough. Cer­tain­ly, $500,000 can­not man­age an ef­fec­tive Car­ni­val in this city,” he said.

While ex­press­ing open­ness to dis­cus­sions with the min­is­ter, Par­ris warned against politi­cis­ing cul­tur­al events.

“When you mix pol­i­tics with cul­ture, it doesn’t work out. The cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go is more pow­er­ful than any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. It is what unites us all, and I will not in­ject pol­i­tics in­to San Fer­nan­do City’s Car­ni­val,” he said.

Par­ris said the city is now ex­plor­ing low­er-cost sup­pli­ers as it works to clear out­stand­ing debts.