By Andre Bagoo Sunday, September 5 2010

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Minister of Finance Winston Dookeran at the Coco Reef Resort and Spa, Store Bay, Tobago yesterday afternoon....

TRINIDAD and Tobago will know once and for all on Wednesday during the 2010/2011 Budget presentation whether or not citizens will have to pay a new property tax, Finance Minister Winston Dookeran disclosed to Sunday Newsday yesterday.

In a telephone interview from his hotel room at the Coco Reef Resort and Spa at Store Bay, Tobago, where he was yesterday attending a Government workshop, Dookeran disclosed that his Budget will clarify the issue of the status of the property tax.

“The country will find out by Wednesday,” he said when questioned on the issue. Asked if the Budget will address the issue, he said, “Yes, yes.”

While the four-day workshop, which has seen members of Cabinet attend sessions on governance, law and team-building, is expected to end today, Dookeran was yesterday due to leave the proceedings one day early to continue his intense preparations ahead of Wednesday’s Budget.

The Finance Minister is scheduled to meet with officials of all ministries at his offices at the Central Bank, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, today, as the process of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of the Government’s fiscal package for the upcoming budgetary period continues. Dookeran said he will work on the Budget right down to the wire.

“Preparations are going fine. It is a lot of work but that is why I am here,” he said. “With Budget preparations we always go down to the very end.”

Former Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira, who was heavily criticised for her ministry’s plans to introduce a new regime of property tax amidst a global economic downturn, has been reported as saying that the new People’s Partnership administration will have little choice but to include some measure that looks like a property tax.

Legislation introducing a new scheme of property tax, which would have arguably upped the quantum of taxes paid for some, and reduced the quantum for others, was passed under the PNM four days before Christmas 2009, with the then Opposition UNC voting against the measure. The legislation was then passed in the Senate on December 30, 2009 and assented by President George Maxwell Richards on New Year’s Eve 2009, as the Government pushed for a possible March 2010 implementation date.

The tax provoked several street protests, including one on November 14, 2009, which saw members from all political divides participate. However implementation of the tax regime was put on hold, arguably as a sop given the early General Election called on May 24, 2010.







The People’s Partnership coalition during the election campaign promised to repeal the tax legislation. On April 19, 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, then the outgoing Opposition leader, said at a rally at St Helena: “There shall not be one cent collected by a UNC government for property tax. We will roll back that tax and wipe it from the law books.”After Persad-Bissessar was voted in as Prime Minister, her new Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan, on June 1, 2010, said a bill repealing the property tax was to possibly be among the first presented by the new administration.

Such a bill, however, is yet to be tabled in Parliament, amidst claims by some that the State may have little choice but to introduce a new regime of property tax, even if by another name, given economic realities and the need for legal reform. To date, the Government has only placed a motion to deal with the procurement of public property on the Order Paper, calling for the establishment of a Joint Select Committee to examine the issue, among other things.

Dookeran yesterday maintained the tradition of being tight-lipped on the measures contained in the Budget, but sources close to him revealed that a number of initiatives aimed at stimulating trade, including reforms of the process by which title for land is managed, are expected to be touched upon by the Budget.

“The Minister of Finance will be making reference to those in his presentation and it will be elaborated on in the Budget debate,” one source told Sunday Newsday. “He will look at a number of things including: tax incentives and tax holidays, waivers on duty on equipment coming into the country, the issue of free zone status, issues relating to land to lease.”

Another source said, “There are a number initiatives that are ongoing to really simplify the application for approvals for various areas of industry in order to improve our competitiveness by short-circuiting a lot of the approvals red-tape.”

Government officials also indicated this week that Dookeran could take action to bolster the funding for State regulating bodies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Authority and Agency (OSHAA) in the upcoming fiscal period.

Sources yesterday indicated that the measures introduced to stimulate trade will also aim to attract new industries to this country. However, these measures will be sensitive to environmental issues. “We don’t want industries that are gong to create major environmental issues,” the source said.

Other pressing issues are also expected to be addressed in the Budget, including the status of large-scale projects from the last administration which have been placed in limbo. These include: the controversial aluminium smelter plant proposed for south Trinidad, a billion-dollar plastics plant and the controversial billion-dollar “Rapid Rail” project which was put on hold at one stage by Tesheira.