By Lara Pickford-Gordon Tuesday, March 23 2010

The property tax net will seek to capture all sectors of society including the thousands of squatters who reside at different locations across the country.

In response to questions from Newsday about how squatters will be treated in the property tax valuation exercise, the Communications Unit of the Finance Ministry reported, “Squatters will be assessed in the same manner similar to other properties in TT.”

Staff of the Valuations Division are currently out on the field getting information from homeowners. According to the ministry, under the Valuation of Land Act, properties will be valued according to the purpose for which the land is “actually used, occupied or tenanted, or where it is not actually used or tenanted, the land for which it is reasonably suited”.

The ministry said where properties are not used, the purpose for which approval has been granted under the Town and Country Planning Act 1981 shall be taken into account in determining suitability.

UNC St Augustine MP Vasant Bharath, in whose constituency are scores of squatters, questioned how the assessment will be done and what tax will be imposed on persons who are already struggling to cope with daily living. Bharath said, “How to determine the property tax on a shack when they don’t have electricity or running water? They live off the land, plant gardens to incur a tax, how will people afford to pay it.”

He said squatters’ priorities are food and sending their children to school. He said many could not afford to send their children to school regularly and the property tax will be difficult to pay.

Among the squatting settlements in his constituency are Bamboo No 2 and No 3, and Spring Village. Bharath estimated there were several thousands squatting.

The property tax will be based on the annual rental value calculated for properties.

“What is the annual rental value of a shack made with galvanise and cardboard, surrounded by swamp land?”

Bharath said this is a challenge implementing the tax. He said there were two types of squatters those who were regularised and those who were not. He referred to a Government commitment last year to regularise several persons residing in Spring Village. Bharath said the files were passed from the Housing Development Corporation to the Land Settlement Agency (LSA) but there has not been any progress since then. “An attempt” was also made to regularise persons at Bamboo No 3 and Bharath met with officials of the LSA. By being regularised, he said residents can have deeds but at present they cannot access loans or use the property as collateral without a deed. The valuation exercise is underway and property tax bills will start going out from March 31.