Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says the People's Partnership Government is moving to approve a new property tax bill. Rowley, who called a news conference at his Charles Street office in Port-of- Spain yesterday to announce the development, declared: "This is a betrayal." During the May 24, 2010, election campaign, the People's Partnership was critical of moves by the then PNM government to revise and rename the tax and promised it would be abolished if they were elected to government.
The Congress of the People (COP), one unit in the People's Partnership coalition, led an "axe-the-tax" campaign. Rowley said yesterday: "In the dead of night, on the eve of Carnival, the Government slips this bill (Lands and Buildings Taxes Act) into Parliament." He said the People's Partnership was elected to govern this country because of its election promise to abolish the tax. Since the PP assumed power, there has been an amnesty on the tax and residents have not been paying it.
Rowley said the taxes were necessary to assist in the development of the country. He said the new bill proposes to increase the tax by more than 100 per cent of what the former PNM government had proposed. Rowley, reading from the new bill, said residential property tax would increase from three per cent under the former government to seven-and-a-half per cent annually. He added that the bill contained a provision for the Minister of Finance to subsequently increase the tax by a further three per cent to ten per cent.
He described the move as "the worst betrayal that can happen in the political environment in T&T." Rowley said the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration had squandered its mandate. "As they have laid this before the Parliament, even before they debate or pass it, this Government has now destroyed its legitimacy in the eyes of the population," he said. He added that the PP had "no moral basis to hold on to office in this country or to govern the people of this country."
The Opposition Leader said whether it was called land and building tax or property tax, it is the same. He also said the bill proposed by the PP retained many of the provisions contained in the Property Tax Bill, including a provision to forfeit the property of non-paying residents. Rowley said under the former property tax, the University of the West Indies, the University of T&T, the University of the Southern Caribbean and cemeteries were exempt from the tax, but in the new bill only UWI was exempt. He said "under no circumstances" would the Opposition support the proposed legislation, which required a simple majority for passage.
He said the PNM was not saying the tax was not necessary, but was of the view "that this Government has no moral authority to take this action against the people." Rowley said citizens of T&T should not allow themselves to be taxed until there were fresh elections. He said two years ago when citizens had jobs and the economy was stronger, they were told not to pay the three per cent tax. Former finance minister Karen Tesheira had predicted that the PP Government would have to bring property tax, even if it was called by another name.