Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter has been pel­lu­cid on Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on prop­er­ty tax re­funds for those who have al­ready paid.

In what ap­peared to be a com­plete turn­around on the mat­ter on Thurs­day, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she made no state­ment say­ing cit­i­zens who paid prop­er­ty tax would be re­fund­ed.

On May 3, min­utes af­ter be­ing sworn in as Fi­nance Min­is­ter at the Pres­i­dent’s House, Tan­coo said he would be re­fund­ing those tax­pay­ers who paid prop­er­ty tax, say­ing it was the on­ly “log­i­cal” move. The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, promised to re­peal the tax.

How­ev­er, when re­mind­ed of Tan­coo’s state­ment on Thurs­day at the post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “Re­funds? You will have to talk to Tan­coo. I think the on­ly per­son who men­tioned re­funds... I have nev­er said that. Let Tan­coo tell you where he is find­ing the mon­ey for re­funds. He is the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.”

When re­porters jok­ing­ly said they were wait­ing on their re­funds hav­ing paid the tax al­ready, a smil­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “My hus­band paid too.”

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia sought clar­i­ty on the is­sue from Min­is­ter Tan­coo. When asked if there was a ra­tio­nale for this change in po­si­tion, Tan­coo, re­spond­ing via What­sApp, said, “I think the PM’s words were un­am­bigu­ous.”

Seek­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, three ques­tions were sent to the Min­istry of Fi­nance through its com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit. The ques­tions were, “Can the Fi­nance Min­is­ter ex­plain the ra­tio­nale for not pro­vid­ing prop­er­ty tax re­funds af­ter his ini­tial an­nounce­ment that re­funds will be paid?

How much mon­ey in prop­er­ty tax pay­ments has been col­lect­ed to date? What hap­pens with the mon­ey al­ready paid by cit­i­zens?”

How­ev­er, the re­sponse from the min­istry was sim­i­lar to what the min­is­ter had said ear­li­er.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has spo­ken and her words are clear, how­ev­er, fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the process will be dis­closed in due course.”

All at­tempts to call the Min­is­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.

In No­vem­ber 2024, for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) had al­ready re­ceived $105 mil­lion from prop­er­ty own­ers.

‘Pub­lic may feel slight­ed’

Mean­while, com­ment­ing on the re­cent de­vel­op­ments, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young said he is look­ing on keen­ly not on­ly as a cit­i­zen but as some­one who has al­ready paid their prop­er­ty tax. Young said it would be in­ter­est­ing to see if any­one chal­lenges the Gov­ern­ment in court.

“It would be a good test case for a claim for ‘le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion’ of a re­fund. If the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance says per­sons are en­ti­tled to a re­fund for prop­er­ty tax paid up­on a re­peal of the tax, he is the of­fi­cer au­tho­rised to in­di­cate so.”

Econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs said she would not say that Min­is­ter Tan­coo mis­spoke on the is­sue but may have been pre­ma­ture.

“When you’re deal­ing with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 90,000 prop­er­ty own­ers (or what­ev­er is the fi­nal num­ber) who have al­ready paid, the ad­min­is­tra­tive cost and com­plex­i­ty of pro­cess­ing re­funds at this scale may not be fis­cal­ly or op­er­a­tional­ly sen­si­ble. It’s not just about whether the State could af­ford the re­funds - it’s al­so about whether that’s the most ef­fi­cient use of the Min­istry’s lim­it­ed hu­man and fi­nan­cial re­sources, at this time.”

An­oth­er econ­o­mist, Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, said while it may not be un­usu­al to get mixed mes­sag­ing from a new ad­min­is­tra­tion, he hopes they all get on the same page very soon.

“I would say, soon­er rather than lat­er, in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est and in the best in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we would like there to be clear­er and prop­er mes­sages that re­al­ly all min­is­ters are singing from the same hymn book. I think it is nec­es­sary in all ar­eas, not on­ly in this par­tic­u­lar one that you raised, that there needs to be con­sis­ten­cy in pol­i­cy di­rec­tion in ac­tions be­ing tak­en.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said some mem­bers of the pop­u­la­tion would feel slight­ed over this re­fund is­sue.

“I feel slight­ed, I paid prop­er­ty tax. So yes, there are peo­ple who did pay prop­er­ty tax­es and would have heard Mr Tan­coo say that they should be re­fund­ed, and they would be ex­pect­ing their re­funds.”

He added that it is im­por­tant that the Cab­i­net mem­bers “get their sto­ries in or­der.”