A more ef­fi­cient tax col­lec­tion sys­tem is com­ing says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Speak­ing at the open­ing of the Point Fortin Area Hos­pi­tal on Sat­ur­day, Row­ley said now that en­er­gy prices are at an all-time low, the Gov­ern­ment must re­ly on an ef­fi­cient tax col­lec­tion sys­tem to find funds to run the coun­try in the fu­ture.

He said an ef­fi­cient Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty has to be es­tab­lished where­by tax­es are col­lect­ed "ef­fi­cient­ly and eq­ui­tably." It does not mean high­er tax­es, but a more eq­ui­table sys­tem of tax­a­tion, he added.

"It is im­por­tant to col­lect the tax­es that are due, not to tax peo­ple more be­cause we have set­tled on what the tax­es should be," he said.

"We in this coun­try have be­come ac­cus­tomed to a sys­tem where the Gov­ern­ment as­sumes sig­nif­i­cant re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the pop­u­la­tion where ed­u­ca­tion is free, health care is free. It is one of the few places in the world, where this is so.

"We have high­ways to be built, roads to be built. Based on the eco­nom­ics we get rev­enues from tax­es and from things we sell or earn. We have agreed on a tax struc­ture in this coun­try. Peo­ple earn­ing 6,000 or less pay no tax."

The PM not­ed that the coun­try was fac­ing an eco­nom­ic storm where­by oil and gas prices have been down con­sis­tent­ly since 2014.

"In fact, now it's a lit­tle worse. The prod­ucts we sell in oil and gas, the down­stream prod­ucts, which we make here and sell, there is no buy­er. There­fore, the abil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment to fund the kind of life you have come to ac­cept is far gone," Row­ley said.

He said those politi­cians who were say­ing they would can­cel tax­es were be­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble be­cause this was not sus­tain­able pub­lic pol­i­cy.

"So if any­body is com­ing to tell you that their elec­tion cam­paign is based on elim­i­nat­ing tax­es that we have agreed on and it is not oner­ous, them is peo­ple to watch. Any promise to re­duce cor­po­rate tax is elec­tion gim­mick­ry and who­lescale ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in T&T," Row­ley said.

He said they raised the cor­po­ra­tion tax for banks from 25 per cent to 30 per cent.

"Banks still re­port­ed a prof­it so banks were made to bear a bit more of that bur­den," he said.

Row­ley ex­plained that if the tax­es are not col­lect­ed ef­fi­cient­ly, "the law-abid­ing salary earn­ing per­son pays tax­es up­front but there are oth­er peo­ple in the coun­try who ben­e­fit far more than you who are get­ting away through foul means by not pay­ing their tax­es." He said 40 per cent of tax­es which ought to be col­lect­ed, were not be­ing col­lect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

Row­ley al­so de­fend­ed the move to re­struc­ture Petrotrin, not­ing that the Gov­ern­ment had to bor­row $2.6 bil­lion to pay work­ers.

Row­ley al­so said that even though Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans had asked for a salary in­crease, it was de­cid­ed that it will not be im­ple­ment­ed un­less the econ­o­my could sus­tain it.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment had in­vest­ed $3 bil­lion in health care in­fra­struc­ture. The 100-bed fa­cil­i­ty in­cludes a ma­ter­ni­ty unit, pae­di­atric ser­vices, burns unit, psy­chi­atric ser­vices, in­ten­sive care unit and four op­er­at­ing the­atres. Deyals­ingh said the San­gre Grande hos­pi­tal will be opened soon.