Here are the big fig­ures and an­nounce­ments of Bud­get 2023.

Bud­get theme: "Tenac­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in the face of glob­al chal­lenges."

Fis­cal Fig­ures:

Rev­enue $56.175B

Ex­pen­di­ture: $57.685B (Oil Rev­enue - $25.019B, Non-Oil Rev­enue - $30.150 & Cap­i­tal Rev­enue - $1.006B)

Deficit: $1.51B

Oil price as­sump­tion is US$92.50 and nat­ur­al gas US$6 per MMB­tu.

Fis­cal mea­sures:

As of to­day, the prices of Pre­mi­um and Su­per fu­el to raise by $1/litre and Diesel by 50 cents. Pre­mi­um fu­el will now be $7.75 per litre, Su­per $6.97 per litre, Diesel $4.41 per litre and Kerosene $4.50 per litre.

In­creas­ing per­son­al in­come tax from $84,000 to $90,000/year, mean­ing any­one earn­ing $7,500 or less will be ex­empt from pay­ing in­come tax from Jan­u­ary 1, 2023. A to­tal of 300,000 to ben­e­fit and will cost the gov­ern­ment $450M per year.

$1,000 one-time trans­port grant to all re­cip­i­ents of so­cial grants. A to­tal of 175,000 peo­ple will ben­e­fit.

Air­bridge to in­crease from $150 to $200 one-way. In­crease will be $50 mil­lion to Caribbean Air­lines.

Seabridge, peo­ple over 60 to pay $25 one-way. Stan­dard tick­et to be raised from $50 $75 one-way. Pre­mi­um cab­ins will in­crease from $100 to $150 one-way. Ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2023.

GATE to be pro­vid­ed to any­one who al­ready ac­cessed it at low­er lev­els - diplo­ma, as­so­ciate de­gree or low­er lev­els to be al­lowed to pur­sue GATE.

VAT reg­is­tra­tion thresh­old to in­crease from $500,000 to $600,000 per year from Jan 1 2023.

Re­bates up to $25,000 for in­vest­ment in re­new­able en­er­gy.

One-time man­u­fac­tur­ing tax cred­it for com­pa­nies that make in­vest­ments in new ma­chin­ery, pro­duc­tion lines and equip­ment up to a max­i­mum of $50,000. It will cost $50M if 1,000 com­pa­nies utilise this tax cred­it. Ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2023.

In­crease in­vest­ment tax cred­it from 25% to 30% to stim­u­late ex­plo­ration and de­vel­op­ment. The loss will be $20M an­nu­al­ly.

De­crease pe­tro­le­um prof­it tax from 35 per cent to 30 per cent for com­pa­nies in deep wa­ter ex­plo­ration.

Fine for il­le­gal tim­ber­ing to rise from $20,000 to $100,000 from Jan­u­ary 1.

Scrap iron fines for steal­ing and oth­er of­fences to in­crease from $15,000 to $100,000.

To in­crease by 100% all firearm user li­cence fees with the ex­cep­tion of as­sault weapons which will now have sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er li­cense fees. Will re­strict the own­er­ship of as­sault weapons from Jan­u­ary 1, 2023.

Tax amnesty on penal­ties and in­ter­ests in tax­es owed up to De­cem­ber 2021. The amnesty will run from No­vem­ber 14, 2022 to Feb­ru­ary 17, 2023.

People in Port-of-Spain

Econ­o­my:

T&T has $US6.8 bil­lion in re­serves or over 8 months of im­port cov­er.

Econ­o­my ex­pect­ed to re­cov­er with re­al GDP growth of 2 per cent.

The fis­cal deficit has been re­duced to $2.43 bil­lion, down from $9.1 bil­lion at the time the last Bud­get was read.

Deficit of 1.3% of GDP ex­pect­ed in 2022.

US$163 mil­lion de­posit­ed in­to Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund.

Based on the cur­rent bor­row­ing and re­pay­ment sched­ule, Gov­ern­ment ex­pects no sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in our debt from De­cem­ber 2021 to 2022.

En­er­gy:

The de­cline in nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion that be­gan in 2020 has been re­versed. T&T to end the year with pro­duc­tion at 2.75 mil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet per day.

Gov­ern­ment will ad­just the Sup­ple­men­tal Pe­tro­le­um Tax Regime to mo­ti­vate more com­pa­nies to pro­duce more oil.

Peo­ple & Jobs:

In Fis­cal 2023, Gov­ern­ment to al­lo­cate the sum of $210 mil­lion as a spe­cial pay­ment to be dis­trib­uted to health work­ers in T&T, in­volv­ing ex-gra­tia pay­ments to over 20,000 health work­ers.

The Min­is­ter an­nounced that over 90,000 per­sons in Pub­lic Ser­vice have kept their jobs and paid salaries on time and that over 50,000 jobs in the wider sec­tor have been kept whole.

Hous­ing:

Gov­ern­ment ex­pects to have the full op­er­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank in ear­ly 2023, a merg­er be­tween T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance and Home Mort­gage Bank.

Prop­er­ty Tax:

Gov­ern­ment in­tends to be­gin col­lect­ing Prop­er­ty Tax in 2023. Le­gal frame­work al­ready in place but sim­ple amend­ments re­quired be­fore the end of 2022.

A gas station attendant fills a container at the NP Service station at the corner of Park and Edward Street, Port-of-Spain, yesterday. 3/10/22

NICOLE DRAYTON

Fu­el Prices:

The fu­el sub­sidy will cost tax­pay­ers $2.2 bil­lion in the com­ing year. "We are firm in our view that this lev­el of ex­pen­di­ture on fu­el is not pro­duc­tive and that tax­pay­ers' mon­ey could be bet­ter spent else­where." Mon­ey spent on fu­el sub­sidy should be capped at $1 bil­lion. A fur­ther ad­just­ment in fu­el prices is re­quired. Pre­mi­um fu­el will now be $7.75 per litre, Su­per $6.97 per litre, Diesel $4.41 per litre and Kerosene $4.50 per litre.

Pub­lic Sec­tor Wages:

"We are firm in our view that our cur­rent of­fer of 4 per cent over 2014 to 2019 for the main­stream Pub­lic Ser­vice, al­though it would be a chal­lenge to raise the re­quired funds, is prac­ti­cal and eq­ui­table."

Fu­el sub­sidy could cost up to $50 bil­lion if union de­mands are met. Our of­fer of a 4 per cent in­crease is the best we can do. Even at this lev­el we will have to dig deep to find the $4.6B in back pay stem­ming from this.

Road Re­pair:

A fur­ther $100 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed to Road Re­pair com­pa­ny, mak­ing im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able, a to­tal of $200 mil­lion for the re­pair of sec­ondary roads. Ad­di­tion­al al­lo­ca­tions al­so pro­vid­ed to 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions. Al­so raised $250 mil­lion for PURE for Fis­cal 2023 and Min­istry of Works giv­en $1 bil­lion in de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme in 2023.

Agri­cul­ture:

Ad­di­tion­al sum of $300 mil­lion for agri­cul­ture in­cen­tives, in­fra­struc­ture and pro­grammes in this year's Bud­get.

Small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es:

Gov­ern­ment to al­lo­cate $500 mil­lion - in part­ner­ship with com­mer­cial banks - for a new long-term loan guar­an­tee scheme for small and medi­um en­ti­ties. First Cit­i­zens will man­age in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er com­mer­cial banks. Govt guar­an­tee will be 80 per cent of loans for up to 10 years.

HDC apartment Vieux Fort #1 George Cabral Circular Street, St James, Port-of-Spain.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

HDC hous­ing:

Gov­ern­ment will pro­vide $1.5 bil­lion to the HDC in 2023 to re­fo­cus on its man­date to con­struct af­ford­able hous­ing. The sum will come via three loan guar­an­tees - $500 mil­lion for the restart of stalled projects, $500 mil­lion to set­tle debts owed to con­trac­tors and a fur­ther $500 mil­lion for the con­struc­tion of new units.

To­ba­go:

To­ba­go to be giv­en $2.521 bil­lion which rep­re­sents 4.3% of the to­tal Bud­get. This breaks down as $2.194 bil­lion for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $300 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment, $18 mil­lion for URP and $9.2 mil­lion CEPEP. This rep­re­sents an in­crease of $185 mil­lion over last year.

Al­so $125 mil­lion is ac­ces­si­ble through loan fi­nanc­ing fi­nalised ear­li­er this year and a fur­ther US$15 mil­lion in loan fi­nanc­ing arranged.

A to­tal of $735.5 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to var­i­ous min­istries and state agen­cies to un­der­take and ex­e­cute ma­jor pro­grammes in To­ba­go un­der Sixth Sched­ule of THA Act. This means the over­all al­lo­ca­tion of ex­pen­di­ture in To­ba­go ex­ceeds $3 bil­lion.

SEE AL­SO: Bud­get 2023: Air­bridge, seabridge, fu­el prices in­crease