Stories by
Senior Reporter
The Inland Revenue Division will be issuing assessment notices for property tax very shortly, says Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
Imbert indicated this during yesterday’s Senate debate on the 2024 Budget.
The package was passed in the House of Representatives on Thursday, following the conclusion of Standing Finance Committee scrutiny that day; and House of Representatives debate completion on the previous Thursday.
Imbert said Government has made significant progress on the property tax issue, and, “Property tax will be effective in the 2024 financial year. The Valuation Roll for residential properties has been finalised and the Inland Revenue will be issuing assessment notices for property tax very shortly.”
Imbert, dismissing Opposition claims, reiterated that property tax on residential properties is calculated on three per cent of the rental value—and not capital value. He repeated that Government expects that at least 50 per cent of property owners in T&T will be required to pay property tax in the range of $500 to $1,100 annually. “That is what we’re seeing so far from the Valuation Roll, which has now registered over 200,000 residential properties and there’s also the provision for deferral of tax for those genuinely unable to pay,” he said.
Imbert said in 2024, Government will proclaim and operationalise the relevant sections of the Local Government legislation to allow residential property tax to be collected by the 14 regional corporations. Legislative amendments will be done to ensure corporations use this for procuring goods and service and not personnel costs.
He said Government’s calculation is that the full property tax for 2024 will be in the vicinity of $400 million.
“But we expect there will be learning curve. Therefore, we’ve made a preliminary allocation in the Budget estimates in three different categories, three different sizes of local government corporations, so we’ve allocated $8 million to the smaller ones, $10 million to the medium-sized ones and $12 million to the large ones in terms of population sizes. We use population to determine the allocation.”
Imbert said Government expects to see an improvement in the performance of local government with the LG reform and “also with this new revenue stream”.
Noting the T&T Revenue Authority and the big VAT tax gap, he said once Government can enhance revenue, “and everybody who’s supposed to be in the tax net pays tax, we’ll be able to do many things in terms of subsidies et cetera.”
Imbert said Government also intends to deal with a “burning issue”, which is the standardisation of textbooks.
“We all know there are changes to textbooks—little changes, one page—and persons are now required to buy a brand new textbook; there’s no generational passing on of textbooks and we’re going to put a stop to that,” Imbert said.
“We’re going to have discussions with all stakeholders to standardise textbooks. We expect pushback, of course, from the ... people who benefit from what goes on right now,” he added, as voices in the background quipped “the cartel”.
Imbert noted $60M allocated for the resumption of the Market Box programme for vulnerable families and 600 houses to be built in 26 areas in the Housing and Village Improvement Programme initiative for the vulnerable.
Noting slow global growth, Imbert said there’s now also the added issue of the Israel/Palestine conflict, as well as the Russia/Ukraine conflict. He noted the effect of the Middle East conflict on oil prices. But he said T&T had real GDP growth in 2023, including big expansion in the non-energy sector.