Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has again called on Gov­ern­ment to de­sist from charg­ing prop­er­ty tax on cit­i­zens who are al­ready reel­ing from high food prices, high fu­el prices, in­creas­ing trans­port costs and soon, high­er elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter prices.

And she’s warned that if own­er­ship of a prop­er­ty is changed, the tax at­tach­es to the prop­er­ty and flows with it.

“We call on the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly cease and de­sist from this tax,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in her 2024 Bud­get re­ply.

Slam­ming Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies for work­ing peo­ple, she said there can be no pros­per­i­ty with­out job se­cu­ri­ty.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­liv­ery was in­ter­rupt­ed by Gov­ern­ment MPs’ re­marks, with House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George hav­ing to cau­tion Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said the UNC is the voice of the work­ing peo­ple, added that Gov­ern­ment had re­fused to raise the min­i­mum wage to $25 per hour to com­fort the work­ing class. She said the mi­nor in­crease in the Bud­get to the min­i­mum wage of $20.50 “is be­ing cel­e­brat­ed by some busi­ness­es, who seem re­lieved that they wouldn’t be re­quired by law to pay their work­ers a liv­able wage.”

“Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers must guard the wealth of the rich while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly be­ing un­able to feed them­selves and their fam­i­lies,” she said, adding that PNM bud­gets on­ly throw a pit­tance to work­ing peo­ple.

“The Min­is­ter an­nounces with fan­fare, that prop­er­ty tax will on­ly cost $648.00 per year. That’s be­cause he is cal­cu­lat­ing on the low­est thresh­old. When this tax is im­ple­ment­ed, cit­i­zens al­ready reel­ing from high food prices, high fu­el prices, in­creas­ing costs of trans­port, and soon high­er elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter prices—will be fur­ther bur­dened.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “Prop­er­ty tax is charged on the prop­er­ty and not on the per­son. This means if own­er­ship of the prop­er­ty is changed, the tax at­tach­es to the prop­er­ty and flows with it.

“Where a per­son is un­able to pay the tax, there are pro­vi­sions in the law where Gov­ern­ment has sev­er­al op­tions: they can sell your prop­er­ty to re­cov­er the tax owed to them, they can levy on your per­son­al prop­er­ty—stove, fridge, mi­crowave and oth­er items, seize it, sell it and re­cov­er their tax­es.

“And don’t be­lieve be­cause you have no deed, no tax will be charged on you. The law is wide to cap­ture squat­ters, HDC home­own­ers, in­her­it­ed prop­er­ty and pri­vate own­er­ship.”

She said Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cor­po­ra­tions will on­ly col­lect res­i­den­tial tax­es—not agri­cul­tur­al, com­mer­cial or in­dus­tri­al tax­es.

“That goes to Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. The Prop­er­ty Tax will not be in ad­di­tion to the al­lo­ca­tions giv­en to cor­po­ra­tions. It will act as a set-off on the al­lo­ca­tion they were grant­ed.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar list­ed views re­ceived from the To­ba­go Busi­ness cham­ber, JTUM, Am­cham, Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber and oth­er groups, as well as per­sons in UNC’s con­sul­ta­tions.

Cit­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from the Autis­tic So­ci­ety of T&T, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared her in­ter­est, say­ing her grand­daugh­ter is on the autism spec­trum.

She called on Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly ef­fect the fair res­o­lu­tion of all pub­lic sec­tor col­lec­tive agree­ments and queried if some­one in Gov­ern­ment has a moth­er who has been at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal for the past three months but doesn’t need care.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er a sales tax to re­place VAT and called for the VAT law to be amend­ed. She al­so rec­om­mend­ed a pub­lic fo­rum on the for­eign ex­change is­sue.

Say­ing there’s been fright­en­ing en­er­gy sec­tor con­trac­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC wasn’t op­posed to the Drag­on Gas deal, but called for full dis­clo­sure on this, in­clud­ing when the gas will ar­rive in T&T and what the project will cost through NGC’s par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment’s eco­nom­ic man­age­ment and in­for­ma­tion on var­i­ous as­pects, added, “This Min­is­ter is a se­r­i­al of­fend­er: each year he pre­dicts growth rate and it nev­er oc­curs...!”

She added that Gov­ern­ment is very de­tached from re­al­i­ty.

“...Min­is­ters Al-Rawi and Man­ning, who came from ex­ceed­ing­ly priv­i­leged lives and know noth­ing of the ‘re­al­ness’ of life, were sent to speak on a post-Bud­get fo­rum,” she said.