RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

A range of com­mon­ly used food prod­ucts, in­clud­ing ta­ble salt, mau­by, co­coa pow­der, vanil­la essence and lo­cal fruit pre­serves, will to­day be ex­empt from Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) un­der a new gov­ern­ment or­der.

The Val­ue Added Tax (Amend­ment to Sched­ule 2) (No. 2) Or­der, 2025, made by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance un­der Sec­tion 8 of the Val­ue Added Tax Act, adds sev­er­al new items to the list of ze­ro-rat­ed goods.

Dur­ing his Bud­get 2026 pre­sen­ta­tion in the Low­er House on Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo re­vealed that the Gov­ern­ment had ap­proved the re­moval of VAT on sev­er­al food items. At the time, he on­ly named ta­ble salt, lo­cal­ly pro­duced veg­eta­bles, and co­conut wa­ter among the items that would have the tax re­moved.

But in the amend­ment, which was pub­lished in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette yes­ter­day, it lists new VAT ex­emp­tions for ta­ble salt, co­coa pow­der (with or with­out sug­ar), mau­by, ic­ing sug­ar, grape­fruit juice, vanil­la essence, soy sauce, pre­pared mus­tard, gua­va jams and jel­lies, and fruit and plant-based snacks such as ba­nana, plan­tain, bread­fruit, sweet pota­to, cas­sa­va chips, and co­conut wa­ter.

It al­so broad­ens the scope of ze­ro-rat­ed goods to in­clude sauces and sea­son­ings such as pep­per sauce, Worces­ter­shire sauce, an­char, kuchela, and oth­er sim­i­lar condi­ments, as well as veg­e­tar­i­an meat sub­sti­tutes like soya, to­fu, and gluten-based prod­ucts. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, cakes and muffins, whether flavoured or not, and lo­cal­ly pro­duced pump­kin, wa­ter­mel­on, cu­cum­ber, let­tuce, and toma­toes, have been added to the VAT-free list.

This is the sec­ond VAT amend­ment for 2025 and fol­lows the Gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing pol­i­cy to re­duce the cost of ba­sic and lo­cal­ly pro­duced food items.

Sim­i­lar tax ad­just­ments were made dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion (2010–2015), which in­tro­duced ex­ten­sive VAT ex­emp­tions on a wide range of food and house­hold prod­ucts as part of its cost-of-liv­ing re­lief mea­sures. In 2012, then-fi­nance min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai an­nounced the re­moval of VAT from 7,000 food items, ar­gu­ing that the mea­sure would make ba­sic gro­ceries more af­ford­able and help low­er-in­come house­holds man­age ris­ing food prices.

The lat­est amend­ment ap­pears to build on that ear­li­er ap­proach, tar­get­ing sta­ple and cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant foods con­sumed across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

With this or­der now in ef­fect, su­per­mar­ket re­tail­ers are ex­pect­ed to up­date their pric­ing and ac­count­ing sys­tems to re­flect the VAT-free sta­tus of the new­ly list­ed items. The Min­istry of Fi­nance is ex­pect­ed to is­sue fur­ther guid­ance to en­sure com­pli­ance and to mon­i­tor to en­sure that con­sumers ben­e­fit from the re­moval of the tax at the point of sale.

List of VAT-free goods

Ta­ble salt

Co­coa pow­der, whether or not con­tain­ing added sug­ar or oth­er sweet­en­ing mat­ter

Mau­by

Ic­ing sug­ar

Grape­fruit juice

Vanil­la essence

Soy sauce

Pre­pared mus­tard

Gua­va jams and jel­lies in re­tail pack­ages

Fruit, nuts and oth­er ed­i­ble parts of plants, oth­er­wise pre­pared or pre­served, whether or not con­tain­ing added sug­ar or oth­er sweet­en­ing mat­ter or spir­it, not else­where spec­i­fied or in­clud­ed, in­clud­ing:

Ba­nana

Plan­tain

Bread­fruit

Sweet pota­to

Cas­sa­va chips

Co­conut wa­ter

Sauces and prepa­ra­tions there­for, mixed condi­ments and mixed sea­son­ings, mus­tard flour and meal, and pre­pared mus­tard, in­clud­ing:

Pep­per sauce

Worces­ter­shire sauce

An­char, kuchela, and sim­i­lar prepa­ra­tions

All oth­er sim­i­lar sauces and prepa­ra­tions

Oth­er bev­er­ages con­tain­ing co­coa

Soya, to­fu, gluten, and veg­e­tar­i­an meat sub­sti­tutes in any form, flavoured or un­flavoured, oth­er­wise pre­pared or pre­served, whether or not dried or mixed with veg­eta­bles for con­sump­tion

Pre­pared or pre­served cakes and muffins, whether or not flavoured

Lo­cal­ly pro­duced pump­kin, wa­ter­mel­on, cu­cum­ber, let­tuce, and toma­toes