Hours after Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley broke news of the Government's move to introduce and approve legislation to approve a new property tax bill, Legal Affairs Minister Prakash Ramadhar said he fully supported the initiative. Ramadhar had been among the leading critics of the Property Taxes Bill introduced by the former PNM government in 2009. Ramadhar said it was not true to say that the Government was reintroducing the property tax. "The property tax which they (PNM) envisaged, we have removed that."
He was questioned by reporters during yesterday tea break of the House of Representatives sitting at the Red House in Port-of-Spain. He said the People's Partnership Government was reverting to the law as it obtained before the property tax. Told that it was just a change of name as the two bills were very similar, Ramadhar quickly responded: "Not at all, not at all."
Told that the new bill proposed a seven-and-a-half per cent rate of tax for residents as opposed to three per cent under the PNM bill, the Legal Affairs Minister said: "Well, I am saying that we are returning to what was there before, which the population had found comfort in and had found great fear in the legislation they brought. "That's as simple as I could put it," he insisted. Ramadhar, who is expected to speak in the debate, said he could not comment on the details of the People's Partnership bill. "What I am saying is that we are returning to the original position."