The Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT) said it con­tin­ues to work close­ly with all stake­hold­ers to en­sure that no ques­tion marks linger over the re­moval of VAT.

“We care deeply about the na­tion’s cus­tomers and want to en­sure they re­ceive the best prices at all our mem­ber stores,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so re­ferred a press re­lease dat­ed No­vem­ber 12, 2021 de­tail­ing the mon­i­tor­ing of VAT re­moval in stores by the Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said on No­vem­ber 1, 2021, more than 3,000 items were im­pact­ed by the re­moval of VAT based on the cat­e­gori­sa­tion of prod­ucts read in the an­nu­al bud­get.

It said with such a great deal of in­ven­to­ry items, how­ev­er, it was al­ways to be ex­pect­ed that most stores would ex­pe­ri­ence mi­nor is­sues by way of clas­si­fi­ca­tion of prod­ucts.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it can con­firm that the bulk of the iden­ti­fied items had VAT re­moved by No­vem­ber 1, 2021 in a time­ly fash­ion.

“We wish to note that not all su­per­mar­kets, neigh­bour­hood shops and par­lours fall un­der the um­brel­la of SATT. There­fore, where some stores are in a tran­si­tion­al phase or not com­pli­ant at all, that will fall at the re­mit of the rel­e­vant statu­to­ry body. SATT en­sures its mem­ber­ship is ful­ly com­pli­ant in the in­ter­est of the con­sumer be­cause we want to en­sure some form of re­lief is be­ing passed on to the fi­nal cus­tomer. We al­so wish to point out that there is still some lev­el of am­bi­gu­i­ty where some sup­pli­ers of goods are still as­sess­ing and fi­nal­is­ing tar­iff clas­si­fi­ca­tions as this is the way point for de­ter­mi­na­tion by that sup­pli­er whether the prod­uct is VAT ex­empt or not. It is ex­pect­ed that if this is still hap­pen­ing that there will be a tran­si­tion­al phase for some prod­ucts,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said.

While SATT ac­knowl­edges that the re­moval of VAT is a form of con­sumer re­lief dur­ing the pan­dem­ic “we wish to re­mind the pub­lic that this re­lief came amid the worst year on record for es­ca­lat­ing food prices due to the chron­ic glob­al sup­ply chain is­sues be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced. The re­moval of VAT does not re­voke the im­pact of glob­al in­fla­tion and the price in­creas­es be­ing passed on by do­mes­tic sup­pli­ers to su­per­mar­kets be­cause of this sit­u­a­tion. Food price in­creas­es are tak­ing place due to world­wide short­ages and ship­ping de­lays.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion added: “Prices are not ex­pect­ed to re­main sta­t­ic as Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains a net im­porter of goods and, as such, are di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by ex­ter­nal­i­ties on the glob­al mar­ket­place.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it con­tin­ues to work close­ly with all stake­hold­ers to en­sure that no ques­tion marks linger over the re­moval of VAT.

“We care deeply about the na­tion’s cus­tomers and want to en­sure they re­ceive the best prices at all our mem­ber stores,” it said.